Broken Mirrors
by shadowwriter01
Summary: A small group of warriors from different worlds was send to a parallel reality where they were fighting the tyrants that were ruling this world, themselves. But Chaos had followed them from the void between realities and is threatening that version of Earth. And even if they succeed to stop her, will they ever be able to return? Sequel to Breaking Borders and Days of Tomorow.
1. Chapter 1: Return to Nothing

Xena and Hercules belong to Renaissance Pictures

* * *

 **Broken Mirrors**

For the simple men, the concept of reality was quite certain.

Beneath them was the soil, the Earth, above them the sky, the sun that warmed the world at day and at night the stars and the moon. And somewhere in between or above, the gods or in case of the Israelites, the Elisans and others, the One God who ruled all there is.

Some of the more intellectual ones of course, were aware that things were a bit more complex than this. Not even the most educated however understood just how much more.

A secret truth was the fact that there was not only one world, but countless universes that existed in proximity to each other.

But this was something that barely anybody was aware of, at least in this age, except for the few who had experienced it first hand.

xxx

One small group of such beings existed at this moment in a world that was not even their own.

Their names were Xena, Callisto, Gabrielle and Sarah- an alternate version of Gabrielle´s niece. They were not from the reality they currently lived in. In fact, to be more precise, they were not even all from the same reality originally.

Yet they had spent the last four years together, in that particular realm.

For them, the adventure began with their mission to the so called cursed town, a place that had somehow drifted between the dimensions.

There they had been confronted with the ancient goddess named Chaos, who had been responsible for the phenomenon.

They barely found a way to escape, to one of the worlds where some of the members of their united group came from. For most of them it was not truly home, but they decided to stay, for the time being.

This world´s version of Greece and the surrounding areas had been under the rule of a vicious group of tyrants.

These were ironically nobody else than the alternate versions of Xena herself, Ares, Gabrielle, Hope and Eve who originally existed in this world. They had helped to form a rebellion against their own counterparts, together with the Perdicas and Aphrodite of this reality and also with Delilah, a Destroyer daughter of Ares and Hope, who had joined their group and they had been leading the people to victory in a 1 year long war.

But without them knowing it, Chaos had followed them.

Here she once again continued her self-given task, to speed up the process of entropy in the universe, and bring desolation, disorder and finally, complete annihilation.

While they were still fighting their own war against the self-proclaimed rulers of Greece, the ancient goddess had at the same time started her own line of terror, completely obliterating one of the lands' greatest towns, decimating armies.

Under the influence of her power, normal humans from several places were turned into monsters, mutated into bizarre monstrosities that represented her insane ideas about change and `progress´…. All of that of course for the ultimate purpose to let it all perish someday anyway.

As she herself had told them, the `ultimate purpose´ of the universe was to turn into dust. The only question was how long it would take and how `interesting´ the way to that end goal would be.

It was just after the decisive battle and the final defeat of the so called `Emperor´ Ares and his Queens that Chaos decided to show herself openly. That was now over three years ago.

Back then, something happened that took them all by great surprise…She gave them time, a respite if you wanted to call it that. Without creating any more damage, Chaos just stood down and left. Afterwards, their current world had been at peace, for awhile.

They all knew, she was doing this only because she found them all **interesting** as she herself had put it, in some twisted sort of way at least and maybe, because at some level they had managed to impress her. On top of that, she was doing it all for one simple reason: because she simply **felt** like it.

This was one of the many unsettling things about her. Chaos, she truly lived up to her name. While it was true that she acted inside a greater frame and this frame was simply the end of everything, her behavior was rather unstable, unpredictable and sometimes depending of sheer coincidence. Life or death, it made no real difference to her.

She was the type of person who, with the same move was just as likely to shake your hand as to rip out your heart.

To her, the world was destined for destruction. So nothing truly counted except for the question **how** and maybe **when?** In some ways she was the perfect nihilist, and that with the power of one of the strongest gods in existence.

Three years, that was the time she had `generously´ given to them, expecting them to prepare for her return, all to make things more interesting.

And preparing was exactly what they had done.

During the last three years they had contacted every Pantheon of Gods that still existed on this world and that they were able to reach. This meant the ones that were not destroyed either by Dahak or by the Twilight Prophecy.

But they had been also looking in Greece itself. Their Gabrielle had been researching old scriptures and legends.

As it seemed, once, many thousands of years before, a group of the Primordial Gods had come together and managed to actually banish Chaos from their reality. Sadly, she couldn´t find anything specific, like **how** they had done it. She wasn´t even quite sure about the names of the particular gods involved. It varied in the different versions of the story.

The group also travelled north and made contact with Odin, who was not happy at all to see Xena since he had several past problems with her, until they had managed to convince him that this was not the same Xena he had known.

As he heard why they had come, he was willing to cooperate.

They later met the Gods of India and then the ones of Egypt.

In all those places they kept looking for a way to stop Chaos and as it turned out, they actually found a few useful things. For instance, they came across the story of an artifact called the Eye of Ra, that had once been used as a weapon against the Egyptian god of the darkness called Apep.

In fact, in many countries they found hints of super-natural objects like this one that could be used to fight off the harbingers of evil.

The so called `Stone of Creation´ was another good example of such similar items. It had been used by the Titans in their battle against Dahak and had been rediscovered by Hercules around 30 years ago. It could channel the power of the God of Light and temporary disable even Dahak himself in physical form.

The question was whether such an object would also work against Chaos, who was not always seen as a plain manifestation of the Darkness, even if she certainly acted like it.

But as it seemed, they couldn´t find the current location of the Stone anyway. They were only able to find out that Hercules had stored it in a safe place thirty years ago, after exorcizing Dahak from Iolaus body. But now it was gone and nobody really knew where.

What they finally discovered brought little encouragement in that matter.

As it turned out, during their reign over the country, Hope as one of the Queens had found out the whereabouts of the Stone and made sure that it would never be used again. It seemed that she had literally removed it from the face of the world. In other words, this was a dead end, another thing they had to thank their tyrannical counterparts for.

xxx

A short time later, they travelled to Egypt, originally just to try to form an alliance with their Pantheon, but then, as they had heard about it, to find the Eye of Ra.

They weren´t even sure if it could help in the beginning. They had only heard that it had once helped the Egyptians to defeat an ancient `chaos god´ and recognized that it appeared to possess some similarities with the Stone of Creation. So far, that didn´t sound bad.

All that was based however just on the stories that the local deities and some mortals had told them. Anyway, given how serious the situation was, it couldn´t hurt to try.

Sure, they had already gained an impressive force. With Odin, the Egyptians and a few of the remaining Olympians, they already had members of three Pantheons on their side. To that came some support from the Indian Gods, the little they could give them so far away from their Realm.

If it came to a direct confrontation, they had for sure more than enough strength to fight Chaos off.

The sad truth was however was that while they could overpower her easily with their new alliance of gods, Odin, Horus, Aphrodite, Isis, none of them actually knew how to remove her from this world for good or had a clear idea about how to kill her.

That information, as it looked, had been lost in time.

They didn´t even know if Chaos could be killed at all. By all that they knew, she could be one of the few deities that were truly immortal. If that were true they were, to say it plainly, screwed.

That would have meant that they could defeat her a thousand times over and she would always be back, while more and more people would be killed, the land would be devastated once again and nothing would change at all.

It reminded Xena of the story that Gabrielle had told them about Ra and Apep, who was called Apophis in Greek.

According to the legend, every new morning, the Sun God Ra would fight this terrible deity who was attacking him in the form of a giant serpent so that the sun could rise and the day could begin.

Every day, Apep was defeated and even `killed´ only to rise once again the following morning. This continued for nearly **3000 years** , until the Eye of Ra was forged and helped the God banish him for good.

If their worst suspicions about Chaos were indeed true, they might actually face a similar situation here. That was the reason they were looking for the Eye of Ra now.

But here they were in for far more than they had bargained for. As it turned out, they were not the only people searching for the artifact.

Once they finally located it inside an old temple close to the area of Armana, they were confronted with two people they knew all too well- the version of Hope from this world and her mother Gabrielle, two of the former Queens of Greece.

By all they had been told, they were now pretty sure that Apep was in fact nothing else than an incarnation of Dahak.

He was directly opposing not only Ra, but the entire Egyptian Pantheon. Should he ever win for good, he would plunge the entire world into darkness and bring down the cosmos as they knew it. The similarities between the two deities were obvious.

Ra on the other hand, who they had actually never met in person, could as well have been an avatar of the Light. By what they had heard from the other gods, he had not been seen or heard of on Earth since the time Apep had been banished. Gradually, other gods had taken over in their place.

This theory was also able to explain how Hope had found out about the Eye of Ra and why she was interested in it. Just like the Stone of Creation- she saw it as a possible threat to herself. In this case however she didn´t just want to destroy it, she had found out about the other´s interest and planned to use it as a bargaining chip against them.

The fight that broke out over the control of the artifact was fierce. It was Xena, Callisto, Gabrielle, Sarah and two Egyptian warriors that their gods had sent with them as assistance, against Hope, her mother and three former soldiers of their armies as they had still ruled over Greece.

With one telekinetic move, Hope broke the neck of one of their Egyptian `guides´ and with the next she threw Xena several meters through the air until she crashed against the temple-wall.

Simultaneously, Callisto and Sarah, together with the other Egyptian fighter, went into a sword fight with their three soldiers.

These three were known war-criminals who had committed atrocities against civilians. If they had stayed in Greece, they would have risked to be imprisoned or even executed, so they decided instead to stay with their two former Queens, even after their fall. At least Hope´s raw power represented some measure of safety from any kind of law.

But now, their luck had run out. Callisto struck the first one down after less than a half minute. Her partner, Sarah, killed the second as he tried to struck her in the back. The last one was now hopelessly outmatched.

Both Gabrielles kept out of the fight, for completely different reasons however.

The native former Queen Gabrielle had lost an arm during the last battle and in her current crippled state, there was not much she could do.

Hope had made a few relative half-hearted attempts to get some immortal or maybe a supernaturally gifted human to offer her a replacement for her arm. Hephaestus could have certainly done it if he had still been alive…

But if she were honest with herself, she actually preferred the more docile state her mother was forced into right now…. More subverted to **her** will. Now however, as she saw her warriors falling one by one, she certainly regretted not having tried harder.

The other Gabrielle was busy trying to decipher the hieroglyphs around the holding place of the Eye of Ra that they had found. After a few more minutes, she had managed to translate the writings and knew how to remove the object from its place.

The `Eye of Ra´ was a gold covered ornament that was holding a bright transparent jewel in its center. She finally understood how it was used.

The Bard was holding the artifact up in her right hand, and she was now standing right in the center of the temple. A gap had been purposely left in the ceiling. As the daylight began to shine on the Eye of Ra, it was reflected by the gemstone and Gabrielle directed it to the alternate version of her daughter.

As soon as Hope was hit by the light, she was thrown to the ground and was now struggling to stand up.

"Mo...mother," she stammered as the dark powers she was using were temporally bound by the light that the eye had conjured.

She wasn´t even completely sure which of the two Gabrielles she had addressed, herself or the other one or maybe both.

Under different circumstances, she might have hesitated. But during the last years she had seen just how much destruction, terror and suffering this version of her daughter and her own alternate self had truly caused and they had not even been doing it in the name of Dahak or something, but just for themselves.

She was worse than the Hope she herself had born, far worse. After all she had seen, she really had absolutely no sympathy left for these two.

They all knew by now that Hope could not, maybe never, truly be killed. But at least they would remove this version from this world for as long as possible.

The other Gabrielle was watching in horror what was happening.

Xena had her sword drawn and stepped closer and closer to her opponent.

"This is not over," Hope told her.

"I know," Xena answered, right before she cut off her head. "Is she gone?" she asked Gabrielle.

"If what I read over there is true, it should take her a very long time until she is able to recreate her body."

"Good," she replied.

After this, the other Gabrielle, who was the last remaining of her group, surrendered nearly instantly.

xxx

All this had happened 13 months ago. Three years had now passed and just like promised, Chaos was back.

First, as if wanting to announce her return, she destroyed another town in Greece with the help of a `natural disaster´ and hundreds of people lost their lives.

They all knew instantly that it was her.

One of the first things she did was to cause the fall of the metaphysical walls between the Realms of the Pantheons, world-wide. This led to a great deal of tumult and unrest all over the globe.

All of the gods were now able to use their powers everywhere on the planet. On the other hand, the supplies of these powers were no longer safe. Many of the gods depended in fact of the worship of the mortals to stay strong. To that came the sources of ambrosia, nectar and other `divine nourishments´ that were always located inside their Realms.

So far, he members of every Pantheon had complete power and control inside and over their own Realm, but only there. The borders were flexible, depending on the spreading of their followers over the lands. But it meant that every group of gods who needed them, always had a safe resource of mortals to worship them.

Now that Indian, Norse and Egyptian Gods had their full power on Greek soil and Olympians in turn had all their strength at places like India, the North Land or Chin, struggle and conflict over the faith of the remaining mortal worshippers and possible wars between the different Pantheons were due to break out sooner or later, especially with cults such as the one of the One God gaining more and more ground on Greek and Roman territory. To that came the fact that their `food sources´ were no longer safe from possible attackers.

It was also something that might have been able to throw a wedge into their alliance with the other gods, but so far they were holding together very well.

All in all, it was exactly the kind of move you would expect from the goddess named Chaos.

This had however also many good sides for them, since their allies from the other Realms could now actively help them in Greece.

Another one of her victims was the Ares of this world. He was found dead in one of his temples by two of his priests, the few who were left. They could not even say for sure **how** he was killed.

He was not exactly one that many people would miss, given all he had done. Only Aphrodite appeared to show some traces of sadness. In spite of his actions, he was her brother after all. By what they had heard, he had been just a shadow of his old self anyway since the Xena of this world had died.

All this happened during the course of a few weeks.

xxx

Now they were standing together in front of their common enemy. She was in the shape of the same dark haired young woman like three years ago.

They all had been preparing the ritual that they hoped would free them from her for good. It was a nearly exact replica of the one that had been used to banish Apep from their world a long time ago.

Horus, the current head of the Egyptian gods was, in human form, standing in the center of their group, leading the ceremony. Next to him was the Eye of Ra, that was now mounted on top of a long staff that he was holding with his right hand. They could only hope that it would work.

"I see you have really managed to come up with something interesting," Chaos told them with a shrewd smile on her face, throwing a globe of bright glowing energy at them, aiming right into the middle of their group, trying to blast them apart. But somehow, the power that the ritual was creating shielded them and her attack was recoiled.

The smile vanished from her features. She remembered the way she had originally been banished from the physical world and she thought this here was just the same. But it was something different. This ritual here was more complex, more powerful, more…. advanced

They had truly found a magnificent weapon against her, she thought. She had wanted a truly interesting challenge and she got it. The only sad part was that it might actually be too much.

She felt the immense power concentrated on her, the power of the Light, the primary Force of Creation and she felt how her physical manifestation was slowly breaking apart under it and how her essence was slowly being drawn back again into the void between the worlds, where she had resided for so long.

In front of all of them, she did something that none of them would have expected right now, she started to laugh full-heartedly.

"I see you truly did not disappoint," she said to them. "You actually did it, you found a way to overcome me."

She was still laughing.

"You win," she told them, "….for now. It doesn´t matter though. Whether it is in a hundred years or in a hundred-thousand or in a million, sooner or later this world will come to it´s demise, like every other world...and I will walk along with it on every step of it. Sooner or later things will come to my way," she declared while her physical body was slowly breaking apart.

Sooner or later this world will come to it´s demise, like every world and I will get along with it on every step. Sooner or later thing will get to my way," she declared while her physical body was slowly breaking apart.

"I do admit however that you have **truly** managed to impress me. So until then, let me give you a small present," she stated.

While she said this, a light dim glow surrounded Xena, Callisto, Gabrielle, Delilah and Sarah for a few moments, right before Chaos' physical form turned to dust.


	2. Chapter 2: The Way Home

**Chapter 2**

It was now once again a few days later, after all of that had happened.

They had won, yes, three years before in the rebellion and then later the confrontation with Chaos.

Now their group, the one that had formed a few years ago, was standing together again, very likely for the last time.

"Do you have any idea what Chaos could have meant?" Gabrielle asked Xena. "What kind of `present´ was it that she wanted to give us?"

"Honestly, I don't have the slightest idea," she replied. "What I do know however is that she is a completely crazy and very dangerous maniac."

"Yes, exactly how I used to be," Callisto who was standing next to them commented. "So that is one reason more to be worried about it, right?" she said.

"And I told you that you should not always talk about yourself like **that** ," Sarah remarked. "You have done so much for these people during the last years; you have saved so many innocents…. So why do you always have to put yourself down?"

 **This** Callisto, along with the alternate version of Gabrielle´s niece, came from another reality- one where Xena´s old enemy had changed her ways many years before. Still, she was often plagued by her conscious for her earlier actions, even after all those decades.

But she was not the only one in their group who was dealing with past burdens. Xena, the most known versions of her, but especially this Xena, also had a lot of experience in that regard.

Her respective partners were actually the ones who were constantly trying to convince them to finally let go of the sins they had once committed. But neither of them quite succeeded.

The small group of close allies who had founded the rebellion a few years ago was now standing just outside of the city limits of the three years ago reconquered town of Athens.

Once again, they were about to start the performance of a supernatural, magical ritual.

This one however was far less special or `important´ than the last one from a few days ago. This time, it was not about the fate of the world or even that of a few people. No, it was just about their way home.

What they were about to perform was in fact a nearly exact replication of the ritual that had transported them all there four years earlier, the same one that they had once copied from the Necronomicon itself.

They were about to return.

The term **`home´** however´ meant in their case not always exactly what one would first think. Not all of them intended to return to the universes where they originally came from, and for good reason.

The one of them who didn´t, was **their** version of Xena. Her world had been a living hell, even far worse than this one.

But that was not everything. All that had happened in her world, was her fault, the result of her mistakes, of her arrogance, of her rush and overconfident decisions and her unwillingness to listen to others. No one had been able to get her rid of that conviction, no matter how many people told her otherwise.

So many years she had spent hating and despising herself. In many ways, she was just like Callisto.

She had tried hard to correct the damage in any way that she could, she tried countless times to at least somehow atone for her mistakes, to make up for at least a small bit of it. But she had failed every time.

Her own reality, she came more and more to admit, was beyond help, destined to be ruled by terror and darkness, probably for centuries to come. There was nothing that she could do to change it anymore. It was out of her hands…

The only thing she could do to make up for her past deeds now was helping other realities, like this one, now that they had discovered the key to these worlds.

She would go with Gabrielle, the Gabrielle she had met four years ago for the first time.

Callisto and Sarah would both return to their own reality.

That being clarified, they were ready to begin.

Perdicas, Delilah and Aphrodite were standing close to them. They were here to see of and give their farewell to the people who had been their partners for the last years, the ones who had helped them win back their country and their entire world.

"Goodbye." Perdicas said to them.

"Without you we wouldn't have been able to do it," Aphrodite told them.

"Xena, Callisto, Sarah," Delilah addressed them, "`grandmother´," she said to their Gabrielle, "I am glad that I have met you. Without you, I might still be under the control of my so called family, used as their tool," she told them with some of the old bitterness.

She had been born as part of something that could be called a breeding program between Hope and Ares. Dahak´s old idea to create a line of so called Destroyers resumed, now however to serve their own purposes.

For the first year of her life, she had been mostly following orders without question, fighting the enemies of the Rulers and killing the ones who questioned them. All that while being treated just like a pawn. It was only when she met the others that she finally found the sense and the conviction to break away from them.

Now she was here to say her goodbye to half of the people who had changed her life.

They had by now begun the same procedure like the last time, four years ago. A small sample of Gabrielle´s own blood, coupled with the words recited from the ancient texts would open the portal through the dimensions.

She and Xena would be the first to be sent away, followed then by Callisto and Sarah.

It was one of the most powerful forms of magic in existence, being performed however in a relatively simple way.

Sarah was just reading the last part of the scroll...the portal was opening...

But what they at first barely registered was the strange - barely visible for mortal eyes - was a glow that was beginning to surround them all, Xena, Gabrielle, Callisto, Sarah... **and** also Perdicas, Delilah and even Aphrodite.

It took a few moments for them to know for sure that something was wrong. Aphrodite was the first who noticed it. She was a goddess after all and had an affinity for supernatural interferences and this here in fact reminded her of something she had seen before, only a short time ago.

Delilah, Callisto and then Xena could see it as well now.

"Sarah," the Goddess of Love called out.

"What?" she asked in confusion.

"Stop it, the ritual! Something is wrong..." the Olympian warned. But at this point, it was already too late.

The portal had fully opened...and seconds later they were gone, **all** of them. They were removed from that reality only to reappear in another one.

"What happened?" Callisto asked them.

They all looked around in confusion...at each other. It wasn´t simply that none of them recognized their surroundings, that alone was actually quite expected. They were travelling between the worlds after all, it was quite likely that they wouldn´t land in the exact same spot in the other reality or maybe, the environment had simply changed over the years.

No, what truly unsettled them was the fact that **all** of them were here, while only Xena and Gabrielle were meant to be send to their dimension at first. In fact Perdicas, Delilah and Aphrodite were not meant to be transported at all but to stay behind in their own world.

"I don´t know," Gabrielle replied. "This wasn´t meant to happen."

"Certainly not," Xena spoke up, "we have performed the ritual correctly, I am sure of that. This means something else must have interferred."

"You mean Chaos of course," Callisto stated. It wasn´t a question. "This mysterious `present´ she had been talking about."

"Who else?" she replied.

"She is right," Aphrodite said, "I felt it clearly, an outside influence on the ritual. Most of us should not even be here. It **was** her, I have no doubt about it. The power, it **felt** like her, if you understand what I mean?"

Some of them didn´t understand at all. Gabrielle, Perdicas and Sarah, despite everything they had experienced in their lives, were still mortal. Callisto and Xena had at least spent many of their years as immortals, but even they were not truly gods or in Callisto´s case had not been for long.

But they all took her word for it.

"I know what you mean," Delilah responded, "It was quite obviously her. Maybe this is some sort of revenge or it is just her twisted sense of humor," she stated sardonically. "If she found a way to interfere with your ritual, then we could be **anywhere**."

"The question is **where** **are we**?" Callisto said.

They all were now finally observing their surroundings. They realized that they were actually standing at a coast-line. Behind them, they could all see the ocean. Which sea, which land was this, they didn´t know.

There was no way to even tell what kind of reality it was.

xxxxxxx

 _Another world...The island of Ireland...a few miles from them._

They had been her for nearly a year, and they arrived shortly after the last events in Greece.

In some ways, it was some sort of an exile for both of them, though a self-imposed one. Their reasons for it however were not really the same for both of the young women.

For Eve, Xena´s daughter and the former warlord going by the name of Livia, it was a way to get away from Greece for a period of time after the last events, as she had been manipulated into returning once again to her old murderous ways.

This relapse, caused by the influence of a terrible enemy, had cost even more people their lives, amongst them Gabrielle´s niece Sarah.

In the end, Xena managed to get through to her and get her back to her senses, after Eve had taken an entire town hostage and threatened to slaughter its citizens.

She had succeeded to bring her back to her more peaceful self, she could have said her true self, but deep down she knew this was a lie and then protected her from the angry people, at the cost of a large part of her own reputation.

After these troublesome events, she left the country for awhile, until things would have quieted down a bit at least. Some would say she was running away from the consequences of her own actions and in many ways they, were right.

No, Eve thought, they **were** right, that was **exactly** what she had been doing. But ultimately, it was her mother Xena who had insisted that she left.

Of course that was not an excuse. She was more than old enough to make her own decisions. No matter what Xena said, ultimately it had been her choice to leave and nobody else's. A part of her hated herself for her own cowardice. But after all, what happened was that she just couldn´t face things there, she couldn´t.

She still remembered all too well the burning eyes before her, the voice speaking inside her mind. She remembered how it was to have something reaching inside your very soul and changing, rearranging what she had thought was **`her´.**

And this had happened to her twice now. The first time of course had been a seemingly enlightening experience, when the God of Light and the Angel Michael had reached out to her and turned her away from her life as Livia, the second one however had been as frightening and horrible as one could imagine and **both** of them had completely destroyed her self-image.

The peaceful, nearly `saint-like´ Eve, in the end proved to be nothing more than an illusion.

 _I have always loved you, even as Livia and I will always be there for you._ These words from Xena and also the support of the others were the only things that still kept her going. Otherwise, she would have been already broken down.

The other woman, Hope, daughter of Gabrielle and Dahak, who changed sides and joined them nearly two years ago, had some pretty different reasons for being here.

First there was the more easy one- she had been curious. She wanted to see the place where Hercules and also Iolaus had spend the last decades of their lives. During the last two years she had actually grown a quite close bond with the son of Zeus, just like she did with the others, even with Xena for the most part by now.

The other reason was far more serious. She had been interested in meeting the Druids of Ireland, looking for their assistance.

It was Hope who had ultimately, together with Xena, brought down the enemy who had been responsible for Eve´s latest change and many other terrible events, her `sister´, another child of Dahak who called herself Adrianna

She had been transported here from the future, along with an older version of Ares. It was a complex story, even Hope had to admit.

But she had paid a high price for it. Being children of the Darkness, both of them, it had been practically impossible to be killed and to be permanently rid of.

So after Xena and her had destroyed her physical body, Hope bound their opponent´s powers with her own. That meant however not only that she had been unable to use them for the last year, but she had to permanently keep up a certain level of concentration to keep her sister´s essence from escaping her grasp.

This was the other reason why she had come to Ireland. She wanted to find a way to banish Adrianna´s essence from this world for good. Having heard about their knowledge and abilities in the past, she decided to ask the druids for their help.

Of course, since it was her father Dahak, who had once killed nearly the entire old druid-circle thirty years ago, she had expected to be greeted with, mildly spoken, distrust.

On the other hand, the enemy that she was holding away from this realm was also one of Dahak´s children as well and a far more malevolent one than she had ever been. So that alone should have been a reason for them to want to help her.

Despite her expectations however, the druids had turned out to be far more cooperative than she had predicted. They had obviously decided not to blame her for her father´s actions.

They also offered ways or at least ideas to help her.

At this moment, Hope was in one of the meeting places of the druids, in a form of deep meditation.

Right in front of her, facing her, the current head of the druid-circle, Bridget was sitting. She was part of the ones who, as Hope perfectly knew, felt a bit more resentful towards her.

However, she also had the impression that this was for a completely different reason than her heritage. In fact, Hope sensed that she held the same sort of feelings towards Eve.

Bridget, as she was well aware, was the daughter of Hercules' former lover and for his time in Ireland somewhat of his life-partner's Morrigan. That happened before he left for Greece, on Ares request.

Now Hercules had returned, but her mother was dead and instead she and Eve had come with him.

Despite that she, like the rest of the circle, had still offered to help and Hope had accepted. They were now sitting together in one of their `sessions´.

In this moment however, they were interrupted.

Hope felt it instantly, especially in her current state. What she felt was like a tremor at the borders that were holding this Realm together and then there was something else.

A few seconds later, she realized what was the last thing she had sensed. A number of beings had just arrived inside this realm, **very** close actually. Some of them were very powerful, at the same time however they felt clearly...familiar.

xxxxxxx

She however, was not the only one who felt the arrival of the newcomers.

Half a continent away, the last two remaining Olympians, Ares and Aphrodite also noticed- almost instantly- the shift between the realities, and even the new presences at the outer edge of what used to be their Realm. They did, especially since one of the new arrivals was in fact one of their own.

For Aphrodite it was especially strange. For a short moment, it felt as if this new being was actually standing very close to her and not thousands of miles away.

Then, a second later, it was over. Everything had returned to normal. But in the distance somehow, she could still feel this now presence. It was a god, so much was clear and he was not alone. They knew they would have to find out more about this.


	3. Chapter 3: Meeting up

**Chapter 3**

 _Ireland_

Several minutes had passed since they felt the arrival of the strange new presences, that meant of course the few individuals that were able to sense this.

On the island this were were only Hope and the half dozen members of the druid-circle. They had however very quickly informed as many other people as they could about it.

The first ones who had been told, were for obvious reasons Hercules, Eve and Iolaus, who were closely followed by some of the other men who were otherwise the best fighters in town- just in case the newcomers were hostile.

These ones were now also busy informing the rest of the settlement as quickly as possible and told them to keep their eyes open...for anything unusual.

xxx

At the same time, for the `newcomers´ the situation wasn't that different. They were stuck at a place they didn´t know, on a world of which they had no idea how it might be different from their own.

They separated into three groups to search the surrounding area. Xena was going with Callisto and Sarah, Delilah with Gabrielle and Aphrodite together with Perdicas.

They had purposely paired of one immortal or god with one or two mortals, just in case the locals might turn out to be hostile. Beside that, they also had Xena and Callisto going together. Given the past that they both had, there was always the chance that one of them might be known here and possibly unwelcomed.

At least that **both** would be instantly regarded as enemies was significantly lower. So they were going together.

Judging by the climate, they guessed that they were in a place further in the north, but not as far as the North Lands and they already knew it was a coast area. That left a few possible countries- for example Britannia, a place that Xena by far didn´t have fond memories of, or maybe parts of Gaul or Germania.

It didn´t take long for them to find some of the outer laying buildings of the settlement. To be precise, it was Aphrodite´s group who reached the town first.

She could tell nearly instantly after their arrival that there was at least one other super-natural being in this area. The presence that she felt was somehow familiar to her, but at the same time, it felt somehow different. She wasn´t sure at all about what to make out of this.

At the moment, Perdicas and she were now standing in front of the small town and a crowd of a few dozens of its citizens had already gathered there. A few of the townspeople were carrying weapons and had them drawn.

It wasn't long until she saw the `other being´ she had sensed with her own eyes now as she came walking towards them over the town square. It was a small reddish blonde woman with features she knew perfectly well.

The `stranger´ looked exactly like Gabrielle, but going by the energy that radiated from her, it was pretty clear that she wasn´t.

"You!" she said, glaring daggers at them.

This was Hope, she had no doubt about this, however not the same version she knew from her world. It still couldn't mean anything good, for this woman here might still be in the service of her father. The question that couldn't be avoided though was what she was doing here in some remote town in another country. These people here were not looking like followers of Dahak- though one could never know.

"Yes it's me, who did you expect?" the other version of Hope told her in a friendly tone but with a clear note of sarcasm reverberating from her voice. "Well it could have been Hercules, Iolaus or Eve, but they are kind of busy right now."

The last name caused a look of sheer surprise on the goddess' face. Hercules **and** Eve? and Hope quite obviously. What kind of world had she landed in here?

"I am surprised however that you brought a mortal warrior with you," she continued, "don´t you want to introduce me to your travelling companion?"

Aphrodite and Perdicas exchanged glance at her statement. She had just confirmed that she didn´t know him at all- unless of course she was somehow toying with them.

She couldn´t help it, something about the friendly behavior of this alternate counterpart of one of her worst enemies was deeply disturbing her. It was just not what she was used to.

On the other hand, the fact alone that the idea that someone else was actually friendly to **her** , left such an uneasy feeling in her, was somehow deeply wrong to Aphrodite. She was the Goddess of Love after all, so it was only natural that she should actually embrace all possible affectionate feelings, no matter where they came from and who they were directed to. But this here, was just too much.

She had fought and resented this woman for years, decades if you counted the times she had tried to bring down the Olympians in her role as daughter of Dahak. Having **her** acting friendly was somehow against her perception of reality. And though, that's exactly what was happening: they were in **another** reality.

Besides that, she admitted to herself, maybe the long and bloody war had gotten to her more than she had first realized.

"I am happy to see you again Aphrodite, but it comes as a bit of a surprise I must say," Hope stated. Her face showed something that looked like a warm smile as she said this. "We weren't expecting either you or Ares here for at least another month. Are you here because of the strange phenomenon that took place a few minutes ago?"

In fact however her own thoughts were not so different. This was Aphrodite, she had no doubt about it. But Aphrodite was in Greece, thousands of miles away. And she knew how limited the powers of the Olympians were out here at the edge of their territory. It was impossible for her to have teleported all the way to this place. She would have to made her journey step by step and Hope still would have sensed her coming from hundreds of kilometers distance.

Yet she was here…. She had suddenly appeared- precisely in the same moment this strange disturbance in time and space happened. This led to one simple conclusion, this was not Aphrodite...or at least not the one she knew.

As a Child of Darkness Hope was of course aware of the existence of alternate dimension counterparts, especially since her sudden appearance just matched with this strange event.

"Yes," Aphrodite replied. In some sense it was true. She knew perfectly well what this `phenomenon´ had to be- she was talking about and it was partly responsible for her arrival.

"Why don´t we talk honestly with each other," Hope offered. "I am not your enemy and have no intention to fight you. Unless of course **you** plan to attack anyone here...especially **me** ," she stated.

"Sorry, but I find that a bit hard to believe," she responded. "Your counterpart- at least where I come from was never anything else than my enemy."

"So I was right, you are not from this reality," she commented. "I have suspected something like this. That alone because the Aphrodite I know would already be bending my ears with your chitchat about all the things that has happened in my absence in Greece," Hope remarked with a slight amusement. "To be honest however, I had rather expected a simple imposter. I admit that I have never actually met a double from another reality before. **If** you are it, this means..." she said now in a slightly threatening tone.

"I assure you I am Aphrodite, but certainly **not** the one you know and this here is Perdicas." Now it was Hope´s face that showed a look of obvious surprise as she heard the name. "We have landed here awhile ago. What happened was...we actually intended to send a few of our group to another reality, not this one, but somehow the ritual went all wrong."

"Really? very interesting. But as I said, I am not your enemy regardless what your relationship with the Hope of your world is. I admit a few years back it had been different. But now we are...as some would say...well...good friends."

"She is saying the truth," another voice confirmed it.

Aphrodite saw a blonde woman stepping out of the crowd. She was wearing the grey robes of the druids. But she as well was radiating a certain kind of energy and it was clear that she was not a simple mortal.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Bridget," the woman answered. "I am the leader of the Druids of Ireland. Welcome to my home."

xxxxxxx

Xena and Callisto, along with Sarah, had taken a slightly different route. But even they came into contact with the native population very quickly.

They had already noticed that someone was closing up on them. Going by the short time it had taken for them to be found by whoever lived here, they suspected that they had been searched for since the moment of their arrival. This meant that the ritual that had brought them here had obviously not gone unnoticed.

Aphrodite had warned them that someone seemed to be here- someone who possessed super-natural powers. All in all, it was only one reason more to be careful.

Xena and Callisto both draw their weapons, Sarah did the same thing a second later as she saw the looks exchanged between them. They all knew this kind of situation from their respective worlds.

A group of unknowns were getting dangerously closer and they were of course greeted with drawn swords. It was just a precaution. If the strangers turned out to be peaceful, the weapons were usually put aside very quickly...if not. They all had been in this situation hundreds of times before.

As the first of, the locals however stepped out of the woods and they recognized him, both of them nearly instinctively lowered their guards.

"Hercules."

"Xena?" he responded, clearly surprised. "What are you doing here?" But this surprise turned into something far greater as he saw the two persons standing next to her.

For a second, his gaze was fixed on Callisto. His expression was practically impossible to read, even for someone like them. But as soon as it turned around to Sarah...it showed clear shock.

Iolaus, who had just stepped out beside him, showed pretty much the same reaction. They kept starring at her wordlessly for a few moments.

"Hercules...that," he stammered.

"I know," the half-god answered. "Xena?" he asked once again, but she only shook her head.

"Yes," she said, "but not the one you probably remember."

No, she was not. The Hercules she had known was long dead. He died trying to correct **her** mistakes. Now she was standing in front of the same man again. She barely managed to look him in the eyes.

For him, it was not much different. He believed her when she said that she was not the same Xena as the one from their world, especially since she was there with not one but two people who shouldn´t be alive.

Sarah, Gabrielle´s niece - who had died only a bit over one year ago, looked slightly different, not only her exterior but also something about her posture and demeanor. This woman here looked as if she was a trained warrior.

Callisto´s presence was another matter. It was clear that she could not be the same person they knew either, alone for the fact that she **was** Callisto- since she too had died years ago and was reborn as Eve. But since she made no aggressive move and this versions of Xena and Sarah seemed to be comfortable around her, he could only assume that things were going to be okay.

He hoped that Xena and Sarah could be trusted. They all just had to make that leap of faith...otherwise they could also just start a fight, and that wasn't in anyone's favour.

Hercules just had to remember that twisted world with his insane counterpart- the Sovereign- that he came in contact with a few times. But at least these ones here didn´t make the impression to be anything like that. Still, it couldn´t hurt to be at least a bit careful.

"I think there is a lot we have to talk about," he addressed them. "I have the impression that you are not from here."

"You can say that," Callisto stated. "We are here...as you could say...by accident."

"That is true Hercules," Xena told him now. "We've just performed a ritual...one that was meant to send us to another world...but not this one. I am not even sure where exactly we are. I think it is better if we tell you the entire story from the beginning."

He nodded.

"Yes, I guess that would be the best thing," he replied. "By the way, you are in Ireland," he informed them.

"Thank you." Ireland, the island close to Britannia, she thought. That matched her earlier observations.

"Hercules, it is good to see you again my old friend," she said to him.

xxxxxxx

The druid `high priestess´ Bridget was the daughter of Hercules' lover Morrigan, who died in the mission against the group of immortals called the Aka Maha, nearly two years ago.

Hercules however was not her father, even if she had very much preferred this option. Instead, it was Kernunnos, the Celtic god who had for the longest time tried to wipe out the druids and had used her mother to do it. That made her herself to three quarters god. It was however something she didn´t like to be reminded of considering who exactly she was related to.

She thought back to her initial reaction to meeting Hope and Eve for the first time.

Like Xena, Eve or Hope, Morrigan had a dark past- the period when she was serving this god as an agent of death. Her so called father had spent years using her as a bargaining chip and basically a hostage to ensure her mother's loyalty. In the end, he even tried to kill her just to get to his rebelling servant.

A few years later, as Hercules left Greece and stayed there for the next decade, they became something like a family- until the day Ares arrived and asked for their help.

She had found out about her mother´s death through a message that Hercules had sent her. He himself had stayed in Greece for somewhat longer to help the people and take care of several other problems that rose up as the Aka Maha had been terrorizing the land.

When he finally returned and she met him again, she discovered that not only had he brought Iolaus with him, but also these two young women, who obviously had a close bond to both of them. They were even sleeping under the same roof. Of course she was not exactly thrilled about it.

But she wasn´t a child and didn´t let herself be controlled by such childish reactions. And even if her impression of their relationship was right, her mother had been dead for over a year at this point.

Beside that, there were very good reasons for Hope and Eve´s presence here as she knew all too well- reasons that went very much beyond any personal relationship.

Her sessions with Hope had started just a short time after she had first arrived. In fact one of them had just been interrupted by the sudden arrival of these newcomers she was just facing. One of them, according to what she had heard them saying, was the goddess Aphrodite, but...a version from another world?

xxxxxxx

The last group, consisting of Gabrielle and Delilah, had taken yet again another route. They had been moving along the sea line and had actually been heading away from town, before they were spotted and intercepted by a group of native people.

By their appearance Gabrielle was quite sure that they were dealing with Celts. That pretty much meant this here was probably Northern Gaul or maybe Britannia. She decided to greet them.

"Hello, we have just arrived on your coast," she told them.

"We know. "one of the villagers replied. "We have been told about you. Come we will lead you to the town hall."

Whatever Gabrielle had expected, this sort of answer was not it and especially not that these people would know about them. She and Delilah however decided to follow the villagers.

As they had come to the edge of the town however, they met up with even more of the natives. At that point however they saw a single woman standing under them and both of them froze.

It was Eve.

Seeing her of all people here, the woman who had killed the Xena who this Gabrielle had originally known and who had treated Delilah like her personal tool for her own ambitions, was a complete shock for both of them.

* * *

This chapter had several references to the earlier stories Light in the Darkness and Days of Tomorow and the Morrigan two parter from Hercules season 5.

The setting in the current reality is about 1 year after the end of Days of Tomorow.


	4. Chapter 4: The War God arrives

**Chapter 4**

 _Ireland_

The two groups were now standing right in front of each other. They had all assembled by now at the center of the town, and, just to put things into perspective, to simply call this meeting here strange, would be more than just an understatement.

All of the `newcomers´ from the other reality were particularly unsettled to see Hope and especially Eve standing between the native group. Most of them had really bad memories about this particular woman- who happened to be one of the so called Queens of the Greek Empire. Not to mention that they had all seen her die by their Xena´s hand years before.

But it was not only that. Hope herself had also been an enemy in either of their worlds. Seeing both of them standing peacefully right next to Hercules and Iolaus was utterly bizarre for them.

For the other side however, it wasn´t much different. Callisto had been their enemy as well...and they all knew that she had been literally replaced by Eve, who was standing beside them.

Eve herself had never seen Callisto in person, she had only heard of her from stories. She knew she was a reincarnated version of her.

To that came Gabrielle´s niece Sarah, who they had seen murdered one year ago, by nobody else than Eve. Yet, despite that event, she was here, apparently alive and breathing.

"Now, I think introductions are a bit redundant here," Hercules stated. "But maybe you could explain again now where exactly you come from."

Xena knew that the woman who looked identical to Gabrielle was Hope...and an ally in this world, as they had been told.

It was another sore spot for her, but not for the reason many would first think of. In opposite to her counterpart in this world, her son had not been killed by their version of Dahak´s and Gabrielle´s daughter. In her case, it was in some sense even worse.

This Xena had done what the other had only attempted and successfully killed Hope hours after her birth. As she had to painfully realize however, this changed nothing for the better...nothing at all.

Dahak´s revenge had been horrible, far worse than anything that his daughter might had done. His followers had not only killed Solan, but also everyone who lived along with him in the centaur village in a horrible way.

Xena in turn had also gone out on her way for vengeance, but with that, she had only managed to play right into his hands. She had done exactly what he had intended.

As she had `Dahak´ finally standing before her, she struck him down, without any thought or care about the consequences.

It didn't even matter to her that he was possessing Iolaus at this point and what that would mean.

She didn´t even have the excuse that she didn't know. Hercules had been standing right next to her, telling her…begging her not to do it. He had explained to her what would happen...that killing Iolaus' possessed body would allow Dahak to take his soul with him to the darkness and that this would throw the entire world out of balance, but yet, blinded by her hate and suffering, she simply ignored him. She chose to listen to Ares instead. Why? she sometimes asked herself.

Quite simply, because he was at that time telling her what she wanted to hear, encouraging her thirst for revenge while Hercules had the best of the world in his mind.

But it hadn't been just her anger to blame. Claiming that, would just be another excuse for the things she had done. No, it had been sheer arrogance on her part. She told herself that she knew better than Hercules, even when he had been the one who had spent the last weeks collecting information about their common enemy while she had only been running around slaughtering cultists, telling herself that he was only sentimental and unwilling to sacrifice Iolaus for the `greater good´, that she was `stronger´ than him.

Yes, as if, as if ever. It had always been **her** who was the flawed one. The one who had gotten corrupted and followed the wrong path...and most of the time she ended up bitterly regretting it later, just like this one. Had she forgotten who it was that had turned her away from her past as a warlord in the first place? In her self-centered hubris she had ignored the single person on this Earth she should have known she could trust.

But this time, it came worse than ever before. It was her darkest hour, her worst possible failure that doomed her entire world.

It came just like Hercules had predicted. The death of Dahak´s physical body...of Iolaus, while he was still possessed, had destabilized the natural balance of her world, between the forces of creation and destruction, so that the destruction now became dominant.

What followed were wars, mayhem and disasters, over decades.

For so long she had been plagued by the question, what if? If she hadn´t listened to Ares. If she hadn´t killed Dahak´s physical incarnation? What if she had never killed Gabrielle´s child in the first place? Or if they hadn´t even followed Dahak´s priest Khraftar to the trap in Britannia at all.

A few of her questions had in some sense been answered four years ago, as she had first come into contact with the other realities.

In the so far three other worlds she had met people from, her first attack on Hope had failed. The consequences had been the same in all of them. Solan died...by her hand in retaliation.

Under every other circumstance this would have been the worst case scenario she could have imagined. But now? Yes, her son had died in these other realities as well, but at least all those other people had not died along with him, the people in the centaur village, the millions that followed. And at least it had been a quick death by what she had been told, her **own** Solan had died on a burning cross.

Her friend Hercules died, stopping one of the disasters that ended up plaguing her world, to correct **her** mistake.

And now she was standing right in front of the same man. He and Hope, two living reminders of the past, at least for her.

She had met another version of Hope before. But that one had been an enemy. Ironically, this had been much easier to face for her. This one here was an ally.

xxxxxxx

Ares had made his decision; he was on his way to Ireland.

At first glance it seemed as if that he had overreacted. He, the God of War, technically he was actually the king of the Olympians now, even if the title didn´t mean much anymore, was going on a journey to the farthest edge of their territory just because of some strange phenomenon.

Whatever was going on in Ireland, he thought, was probably a harmless disturbance in the borders of the Realms or something, and since not only Hercules, but also Eve and Hope were already out there, not to mention this druids he had heard about, they should be able to deal with it without his help.

But after all the disasters of the last years, he would not take **any** risks.

Hope was no longer able to use her powers since she had been using them to banish this other being from this world, as he had been told, and Eve- the last time he had seen her- was somehow flipping between being a useless pacifist and a homicidal maniac and back.

To be honest he wasn´t quite sure if these two could be trusted to deal with **anything** right now in their state. Unless they had greatly improved during that past year he had not seen them.

For a brief moment, he was nearly disgusted by his own thoughts. He was the God of War and not some sort of protector of the world. He nearly sounded like Hercules. Normally, he would be the one causing trouble for others, not helping them to sort it out.

But it couldn´t be helped. After the Twilight that nearly wiped out his family, he being reduced to a mortal for over a year, then later the Aka Maha, Assur and his quest for power- that had nearly destroyed the universe and then on top of this, this creature named Adrianna running amok in Greece, after all that even he didn´t want another crisis right now.

It would probably be nothing anyway. He would arrive in Ireland, met up with Hope and Eve, find out what exactly had happened and then catch up with the two about what had happened during the last year.

And if things went good, he would have the chance to have some fun with one of them the next night or maybe even with both of them. Or maybe not, these women were moody, especially this ones and you never knew what they would decide.

Ares was just making an appearance on the coast of Ireland. His powers were weak out here- he had on the last part of the way teleported multiple times and always in small distances, but he had finally made it without problems.

Now it was all about finding one of them. He had only been here once before, when he had asked for help. Back then, he had basically just walked into town and asked the first person he met about Hercules.

This time though he didn´t want to sink as low as to ask a mortal for directions.

"Now, where could they be?" he said to himself.

xxxxxxx

The sudden arrival of the doubles from other realities had been quite a surprise and interrupted the usual course of events. With both Hercules and the Druid Circle living in the area, the people of the town were used to unusual events, like the unannounced appearance of gods and half-gods on their land.

This here however was strange even by that standard. Yet most people of the town didn´t even realize how strange it was, since they did not know any of the doubles counterparts. They had never met Aphrodite or Callisto or even Sarah in person. So for them this was only another group of strangers who had suddenly appeared on the island.

So after the initial surprise, most things returned more or less to the daily routine, at least for the normal people.

In case of the not so `normal´ people, that meant especially Hercules, Hope, Iolaus and Eve, several more personal conversations with certain members of their guests were due to happen. It was especially with Eve some of them felt the need to talk to, but also Hope, Hercules and Iolaus.

One of the reasons they were particularly interested in talking to Eve, even if not necessarily in a positive way, was an incident during their `introduction´ earlier when their two groups had first met as a whole.

 _xxx_

 _For all of them, this was certainly a surprise. Before them was standing the legendary Hercules, who had died a few years ago in the world they_ _had_ _just_ _come_ _from, his friend Iolaus,_ _and the shock was even greater for_ _Sarah and Perdicas who had never met them before._

 _To that came two obviously peaceful versions of Hope and Eve. You had to remember,_ _these_ _were essentially the same people they had been fighting against for years._

 _Sarah however realized something. They were all starring at her. Not at the goddess Aphrodite or at the infamous Callisto or Xena and Gabrielle or even at Delilah who was after all a Destroyer in_ _the_ _form of a human, no at her, the simple mortal girl. The question was only, why?_

 _"Excuse me," she said, "but you all...is there something_ _ **special**_ _about me?"_

 _"Sorry, it is just..." Hercules started._

 _"You died," Hope of all people answered, "over a year ago."_

 _"I see...how?" she replied, more than a bit unsure._

 _For a few moments, she was only met with silence._

 _"I.._ _.uh_ _" Eve began to speak, but it didn't_ _seem_ _as if she was able to end the sentence._

 _"Eve killed you," Hope then explained. In opposite to the others she saw no reason to show false reluctance or to sugarcoat the truth. "_ _You see,_ _Eve had once been a roman commander called Livia who murdered countless people, until the Force of Light, well...changed her. But last year an enemy named Adrianna- she was like me a child of Dahak- influenced her mind and turned her back to her old ways...for a short while at least. You_ _were_ _her first victim."_

 _The reaction of the other group to that revelation came instantly and was all but friendly._

 _Eve saw that Callisto gave her a hard and stinging glance, Gabrielle was just looking grim and angry._

 _But it was Sarah herself who showed the most upfront direction, as she made a few steps forward and punched her in the face._

 _xxx_

But Eve was not the only one. Xena for example was especially interested in talking with Hercules and Hope and mostly with Iolaus.

She would also be speaking with Eve of course. She knew that she was technically her daughter, even if she had never had her own Eve.

But the only version of her she had ever met was an unrepenting monster, one that she had killed herself and as it looked, if it had not been for the Light, this one would be pretty much the same way.

She remembered how the last Eve she met had actually been boasting with the murder of Sarah as she had seen the version of her who was with them and this one had done the same thing.

No, despite the blood relation, she didn't feel particularly close to her.

xxxxxxx

 _The coastline_

Ares had by now decided to just use his super-natural senses to try to locate the others. At least Hope should he be able to sense, unless she had decided for some reason to hide her presence.

As he did this however, he was into a tremendous surprise. It seemed as if there were at least a few supernatural beings close by, at least one of them was a god. What exactly was going on here?

Had some of the Celtic Gods decided to appear and make a visit to the place? He would find out soon enough, when he would find Hercules and the others.

xxxxxxx

At the same time Xena had just finished telling absolutely everything about herself to Hercules and Iolaus, how she had killed Hope, how she had been blinded by revenge and fallen for Ares' words, how she had killed Iolaus as Dahak possessed him, how her world paid the price for what she had done.

"You should stop being so hard on yourself," Hercules said to her.

"Thanks for your words," she replied, "even if you don´t really mean them."

"How can you say something like that?" the half-god asked her.

"Maybe you have not been listening closely? I have in my world singehandely ruined everything you two have been fighting for your entire life."

"Xena, your son had been murdered. Everybody here would understand why you reacted the way you did." Iolaus told her. "And you can not know this, but I have been possessed by Dahalk as well. I know perfectly well what he is able to do to provoke you."

Xena was now staring in awe at both of them, looking for signs that they were only trying to placate her. She found none.

Then, to both of their surprise, she started to laugh loud.

"But that just is it," she said, "he didn´t need to do anything to provoke me. I had my mind set on killing him...and you along with him." she gave a glance to the shorter man, "and I let nothing convince me otherwise. My Hercules was standing right next to me and was telling me exactly what would happen but I was too stupid and arrogant to listen."

She was by now nearly shouting at the two men.

"And what about my son? After I had murdered Hope...a woman who is by what I saw now your friend and ally in this world...I did **nothing** to make sure that my family and friends are protected. Gods, I had my head so high up in the clouds that I thought Dahak would just let this slide without doing anything. The truth is, I am as much to blame for Solan´s death as he is."

She was looking straight at Iolaus now.

"You say you have been possessed by Dahak as well? I guess I have not been there during this battle right?"

Since none of them gave an answer, so she took this as a **yes**.

"And yet you both are here, alive, you had somehow succeeded, while my world is now only a horror-scenario of never ending wars, natural disasters and atrocities. Do you know why it is like this? Because **I** have not been there, in your world, to mess everything up, that´s why.

It would have been better if you killed me when you had the chance."

Both of the men were listening to the unbelievable line of self-hatred from the double of their old friend. Neither of them said anything. They weren´t sure what to even say to this.

"Xena?" they heard a surprised sounding voice coming from a close distance to them. They turned around.

Ares was standing at the edge of the forest glade where they were holding their conversation.

Xena instantly draw her sword as she saw him. The look of self-loathing from a few moments ago had now turned into one of pure hatred.

* * *

 **Authors note:** As reminder, this Xena here is the same one as shown in the story `Darkness in the Light´ chapter 5.


	5. Chapter 5: Talk

**Chapter 5**

 _Ireland_

Ares could only say he was shocked.

Of all people he had expected to meet here, Xena was probably one of the last ones.

She had her sword drawn and went for an attack before he even fully registered what had happened.

Despite that she, at least as far as he knew, could not really harm him, even he the War God was alarmed as he saw the expression on her face.

"Xena, what…?" he asked, a tad confused, but she only answered with a snarl and tried to slash his humanoid form apart with her blade. While this wouldn't kill or even actually wound him, it would at least give her some satisfaction.

At some level, she knew that this wasn´t the Ares that she had her grievance with, certainly not since that one had actually died- he had been one of the first victims in the holocaust both of their actions had unleashed on their world- but right now she didn´t really care. He was still Ares and so he was the rightful target of her fury.

In this moment she got behind his defenses and landed a hit that would have killed a mortal man. She could feel now her sword cutting through the `flesh´ of his immortal body.

The War God was still caught in his surprise of both, seeing her there and having her attacking him so ruthlessly.

"Xena, stop this!" she heard Hercules calling out to her.

He and Iolaus were slowly approaching her from both sides, carefully.

"Hercules, don´t try to stop me," she hissed.

"This isn´t the Ares you remember," he pointed out to her.

"I know that," she answered, " ….but he is still close enough to the real thing."

"Would someone please explain to me what is going on here?" the War God questioned. "I hope you are not just doing this because you are in a bad mood" he addressed the raging female warrior. "How comes that you are even here in the first place?"

She didn't reply but kept starring at him angrily.

"Let me get one thing straight," she said. "I am not the Xena you know. And **if** the one you know is actually on speaking terms with you, then I can only feel sorry for her."

"Well, it is not exactly just **`speaking terms** ´," he replied with a hint of smugness.

"Shut up," she growled. "At best never speak to me again," she stated. "You see, the others and I will probably not stay here for long and these few days, just stay out of my way."

With these words she turned around, gave a brief but intense glance to Hercules and Iolaus and began to walk away.

She just had the conversation that she had felt she needed to hold the most. Ares' sudden appearance however was a surprise, for all of them as it seemed.

 **Now** she just needed some time alone for herself.

xxx

"Yes, now that was certainly **not** the Xena I know," Ares commented, "even if I see many similarities. Now, would you care to explain?" he asked Hercules.

"Hello Ares, it is nice to see **you** as well," he responded drily. "About her, well I think you can already take a good guess. You are here because of the anomaly, right?"

The Olympian nodded.

"I am. Aphrodite and I could feel the disturbance all the way from Greece. But Xena?...I guess she is….?"

"Yes, she arrived with it...and the others as well," Hercules stated.

"Others?"

"It is an entire group of them. She is a double from another reality, just like the Sovereign."

"And nearly as friendly," Ares commented.

"She has her reasons," the half-god responded.

"Yes and as it looks like she has a real grudge against me…. Has to be something nasty."

"You have no idea," Iolaus commented.

"It is best we tell you the whole story from the beginning," Hercules said to him as he started to explain everything to him.

Ares looked up as they came to the point that the group of travelers had a second Aphrodite with them.

"Moment, you say one of these guys is another version of our sister?"

"Yes."

"That explains the strange presence I've been having since I have arrived on this island. Do tell me, is she similar like the one we know?"

"Yes, very much I would say," Iolaus responded.

"But just like this Xena she has serious problems with the actions of one of your doubles from the other realities," Hercules added.

"Of course it had to be like that," Ares stated. "Well, you should still introduce me to her so that we can talk. If you do that, we can hopefully avoid getting into another fight."

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea," the half-god responded. He and Iolaus remembered what the other Aphrodite had told them about where they came from and what the Ares of their world had been involved in.

She would definitely **not** be happy to see him, not at all.

"And could you tell me now what exactly this Xena has against me?" he asked.

"Okay, but you won´t like it," Hercules answered, "not at all."

xxxxxx

By now Hope had, together with Bridget, once again gone back to the secluded place close by, protected by the druid circle, where they were holding their regular `sessions´ together.

They continued doing what they had been doing a short time earlier when they were interrupted by the arrival of their new `guests´.

Ever since she had arrived- nearly one year earlier- the members of the Druid Circle had been assisting her with meditation techniques and magical rituals. All that, with the purpose to banish and neutralize the essence of Adrianna which she had absorbed and was currently suppressing.

One year ago the megalomanic Child of Darkness, who came from the future, just like the version of Ares they had met last year, was terrorizing Greece and had threatened to destroy the entire world.

Though Hope had also been serving her father for years- killing everybody who stood in his way or were simply inconveniences, leading Dahak´s disciples and even trying to breed a group of Destroyers to send them against the Olympians- the difference between her and this other dark child was as obvious as the night and day.

Adrianna was **insane**. She, by what they had seen of her, was self-centered to the extreme and obsessed with her own importance to the point of madness.

While Hope had been and done evil in the name of Dahak, she had done it on **his** behalf-mostly at least, until the day she realized how far her father was truly willing to go and then she could not longer support him.

The other daughter of Dahak on the other hand, had ultimately only been out for herself from the beginning.

She went out to destroy the world...wipe out mankind and replace it with a race of demon-hybrid monsters her followers had raised...and then blamed others for the `insolence´ of actually fighting back against her. That alone should tell much about her mindset.

She had actually bragged in front of them at killing her own mother and taking over leadership of whatever organization of Dahak's worshippers they both had been part of in the future. At the same time, she never stopped blaming the future-version of Ares for stopping whatever plans she had in their original time.

Her entire attempt to wipe out humanity here in this era had actually been `Plan B´. Ultimately, she was trying to destroy the world out of pure spite.

Like her `half-sister´ Hope, Adrianna was just as immortal and practically indestructible. This here had in the end been the only way to stop her. Otherwise, she would have just kept on regenerating her body every time they managed to strike her down, killing more and more people and forcing them into an endless fight.

It had been Hope's action to absorb her essence and practically sacrificing her ability to use her own powers to put an end to her threat.

But this `essence´, her life-energy, her power, her soul, her still living mind, all that was still there, buried deep inside her own consciousness, crawling, trying to get out and return to life.

This had been the one of the reasons why she was here...in this land...to seek out the assistance of the druids. And it was given to her. Since then, she had been meeting them on a regular basis.

Together, they were trying to find a way to get rid of Adrianna´s essence for good and banish her spirit from this world forever.

It was one of these meetings that she had with Bridget that they had interrupted earlier and were taking up again now, only to realize that that they were not alone.

Someone seemed to have followed them. It was one of their guests, she could tell. She could feel the presence of the other one...close by.

Bridget had also noticed. But so far she, didn't say anything.

"Now...welcome," Hope said loud. "You can come out now."

A few seconds later, the stranger stepped out of a crowd of trees close by. It was the red headed woman she had seen between their guests.

Hope had already assumed there was something of a connection between them. Her energy signature was somehow very similar to her own.

She realized that now even more than during the meeting of their groups, but she admitted she didn´t really came to concentrate her senses on this woman alone then.

With a second Gabrielle, Xena, Aphrodite and Callisto out there, not to mention a double of her dead cousin, she was a bit distracted from paying much attention to her.

Anyway, she had to be a supernatural being to be even there. This was a closed up part of the forest, separated from the rest by the powers of the druids. Nevertheless, she seemed to have just walked right into it.

"You have come to see us?" Hope addressed the young woman.

"No, to see **you** actually," she corrected.

"I see," she replied.

"I will leave you two alone for some time," Bridget said. "But remember, we have not finished this session yet and we should do it as quickly as possible. We are making progress, but if we waste time now, we may undo what we have reached."

"You don´t have to remind me," Hope responded. "Please sit down," she addressed the newcomer as Bridget was already a few meters away.

At her word, the young redhead took a place right in front of her.

"You said your name was Delilah right?"

She just nodded.

"You haven´t said much about yourself when your comrades introduced you", Hope stated.

"I don't talk much. You could say it is the way I was raised," she said. There was great bitterness behind her words that could be read even without supernatural senses.

"Tell me, what exactly do you want to talk to me about?"

"That is a good question... **mother** ," Delilah replied.

To say that Hope was confused, would be an understatement. For the first time, she truly fully concentrated on the aura of the woman before her. Her essence, she realized now, was remarkably similar to the son she had given birth to years ago.

But in opposite to **him** , this woman here, was looking completely human.

"You...you are a..." she said.

"Yes," she responded, "a Destroyer- the last of the new line your counterpart and Ares had bred. I think the others might have mentioned that part. And the only one who looks completely `normal´. I suppose this didn´t happen in your world, huh?"

"Not exactly," Hope replied. But it certainly could have, she thought...maybe even now.

She remembered what Ares had told her about Eve´s ideas for all of them as she had snapped last year. It all sounded awfully familiar now.

Her own daughter...and Ares, how in the world had she been able to oversee this?! Had she truly been **that** distracted by everything that was going on here? Or were her senses so dimmed by the constant strain of suppressing Adrianna´s essence?

A few moments later she had more or less caught herself again.

"I see why you wanted to meet me," she stated. "And...do you want to talk about my counterpart in your world? about the life you had? What exactly...?"

"To be honest...I think I am not completely sure myself. I guess I wanted to see how **different** you are from her?" Delilah countered.

"A good question…" Hope commented. "I guess Gabrielle will want to talk to me as well."

"`Grandmother´, that is for certain. I think she is truly looking out to meeting a version of you that is actually not an enemy."

"Yes, I can imagine that," she replied. "Say...could you tell me how old you are? As you probably know, I myself have grown up in about nine months, so it is a bit hard to say."

"Five years in a few months," she responded. "The first two I have spent serving... **them**."

"I understand. But why? Was it out of loyalty to your parents? That's what happened with Dahak and me."

"It was a bit of it, I would say. Your counterpart was actually the only one who treated me with **some** measure of respect. For most of the others I was just a tool…as for Gabrielle….she acted as if she didn't really care at all."

"Is that so? Now, that wasn´t very wise of them then," Hope commented. "Never treat your followers as if they are expendable...even if they are...or you for some reason want them to think that. That was one of the things father had thought me. You are the best proof that he was right."

Delilah could see the self-ironic smile on her face as she said this.

"Now, why don´t we talk a bit more about `old times´, yours **and** mine?" her `mother´ told her.

xxxxxxx

A few kilometers away, Eve was for the moment all alone. Saying that the meeting with the newcomers had not gone as she had hoped for, would be an understatement.

Sarah, she was part of this group. It just had to be her of course.

Eve crunched at her own line of thinking. She could hardly fault the woman for just being there-especially since this entire situation had been her own fault in the first place.

She was the one who had murdered the Sarah of their own world, Adrianna´s influence or not. And even then, it was not like the influence that creature had on her had been anything like mind-control. No, she had just drawn her dark side out again and left it dominate her...turned her once again into Livia.

That part had been her fault...changing her like this...or maybe better said changing her back. It hadn´t been the first time after all.

Murdering Sarah however, that had been completely on her own. Adrianna had not even suggested it. She...Livia...had practically done it on a whim.

Who was she to actually complain about her presence now?

Still, she remembered the looks all the members of the other group had given her.. She knew them all too well. Murderer, monster, that were what these stares meant. She had received them often in the past...from people that she didn´t care about.

But never from Xena and Gabrielle...or people who just looked exactly like them.

They hated her, she realized. Was it a wonder? another part of her asked. She had also seen however that they had singled her out.

Some of them were looking at Hope in a similar way, but it was not nearly as intense. In her case, it at been more like distrust and anger maybe, but she had shrugged it off anyway.

In truth, Eve admired her for that ability. She couldn´t do the same thing...not with **them**.

What exactly was it that her counterpart had done to them to receive a reaction like this...worse than...than the Child of Darkness? Whatever it was, it had to be bad. They were looking at her like a murderer. This was quite ironic because ultimately...that was exactly what she was.

Still, somehow, she seemed to have gotten used to Xena and Gabrielle forgiving her every time...too used.

God, she thought to herself, sometimes...or maybe in fact all too often...she acted truly like nothing more than an immature, spoiled brat.

But on the other hand, how could one even mature when some `higher powers´ kept manipulating your mind and your soul?- a cynical part of her thought.

What was even the point of being good, if some maniac with supernatural powers could simply change that whenever she wanted?

But this was no way to think and she knew it. She had to somehow accept her own guilt and find a way to move on...again.

Oh yes, like you did the last time? the same cynical part of her asked. What had been your solution again? to claim that you **aren´t Livia?** That you have become someone else?...Yes, that had truly been a way to `accept your guilt´.

Suddenly, she realized she was no longer alone.

He had followed her while she had been in deep thought. It was one of the `strangers´.

"Perdicas," she greeted him.

A part of her wanted to slap herself for having gotten as distracted as to actually allow someone to come so close to her unnoticed while another part actually prepared herself for an attack. It was clear that their guest didn´t like her very much.

"Eve," he returned the greeting.

"I guess you are **not** here to kill me," she stated.

"No."

"Good," she replied.

"I wanted to talk."


	6. Chapter 6: End of Talk

**Chapter 6**

 _Ireland_

They had been talking for a few minutes now. This version of Eve - he had to admit, was certainly not what he would have expected.

It was not even simply the fact that she was a `good´ version of the person he had known, not really at least, plus by what he had been told, she had done things in her past that nearly rivaled the Eve of **his** world.

No, it was the sheer amount of the underlying regret and self-hatred that he felt radiating from her.

In this regard, she reminded him more of the version of Xena who had arrived with him here than of the Eve he had known. That one had never shown even a hint of regret for the things she had done.

The experience of talking to her was, at the very least, bizarre to him.

While the change of character in his former wife Gabrielle and her friend Xena when they had abandoned every sort of morale had completely horrified him, both of them had -at least at a ceratin time- been good people in his view, but he had never known Eve as anything else than a monster.

To that came the simple fact that he was aware that the alliance that led to the tyranny in his world had originally been her idea, so he couldn´t help but blame a part of Gabrielle´s own turning on her, even if he himself admitted that he had doubts and that was well justified.

Whatever else she had done, was it truly fair to blame the fact that Gabrielle had allowed herself to become a monster on Eve? Or was it just that he simply didn´t want to completely admit to himself how low his once beloved wife had fallen?

The idea that distracted him even more however, was the fact that, by her own admission, it was only because of the sudden interference of the `God of Eli´ that she had changed at all. And that it had been the god's influence that had convinced her to change her ways. In short, she had not actually become `good´ on her own accord. Perdicas truly didn´t know what to think about that.

xxx

He was however not the only one who had wanted to speak with her.

Callisto was standing not all too far away from them. Just like the others, she also wanted to exchange a few words with this woman-though they wouldn't exactly be friendly ones.

`Eve´ was a reincarnation of herself. She knew this, she had been told before. But she was also the murderer of countless people. She was also the murderer of her partner and best friend. Or at least in this world she had been.

Callisto´s own hands were hardly clean however. So she was hardly in any position to pass judgment- even if she had spent the last decades attempting to make up for her atrocities- which was also the main reason both of them would probably **survive** this conversation.

If she had still been the same person she was about 30 years ago and the one in question had killed someone so close to her, the situation would have been quite different.

Ironically though, if she were truly the same as all those years ago, she would possibly not have cared in the first place. At that time, she had no true friends and nobody **had** been actually close to her, not really.

Yes, she had originally started everything in the name of revenge for her parents, who had died in the fire that Xena´s troops had started during their attack on Cirra, but at this time, they had been nothing more than memories and all what was left to her were first bitterness and hate...and then in the end, simply emptiness.

Until the day she had found out about Eve, she had never fully realized how lucky she was that she had been able to step back from that abyss. Even reincarnation, even completely losing herself and her past had only given birth to yet another mass murderer.

And now, she had to deal with that other one, who somehow had just gotten her redemption handed to her **twice** , the same redemption that she had to earn and to fight for desperately for years.

Yes, there was something about **this** Eve, that she could definitely not stand.

xxxxxxx

In a quite similar situation, Hope and Delilah had just reached the end of their conversation.

By what the human looking Destroyer had found out, this version of her mother had actually been in the beginning very similar to the one she knew. Like the Hope of her own world, she had originally grown up as a loyal supporter of Dahak, after Gabrielle had been forced to abandon her in Britannia.

This had changed only a few years back, as Dahak had finally come up with a plan that she decided she would no longer be willing to support.

"So you changed sides and joined the group around Hercules and Xena," Delilah summarized. "Like my own mother did, only in this world they staid…well, good guys."

Hope responded to this statement with quiet laughter.

"To be honest, the question if Xena is a `good guy´ is still a bit open for debate," she answered smugly. "Just like it is with me actually. It depends on who you ask and when. See, I joined Hercules and the others because in my opinion it was the right thing to do at that point. Just as following father had been the right thing for me before that."

"So it is all relative to you? You could have just as easily ended up on the other side?" Delilah questioned.

"You act as if that is a surprise to you `daughter´. We could all be easily standing somewhere else," Hope smiled at her. "Tell me, what would have happened if you parents and their...ahm `friends´ had actually treated you with respect instead of ignoring or using you? Don´t you think you would have chosen them above this group of doubles? Your mother my dear, was the only one out of them who was actually smart."

"I see," Delilah responded grimly. Of all the things she might have expected her pseudo-mother to say, this was certainly **not** it.

"Now, it was a pleasure my dear, but as I've already said, Bridget and I have to continue our current meditation session. And I am sure the others of **your** group are already trying to find a way to get you back where you belong. Maybe they have something figured out by now."

"Of course," she replied. She was already turning around to leave.

"Delilah," Hope addressed her again as she was already one step away. "You should know this. While I see myself as somewhat in between, I have met people who undoubtly were evil...and you are clearly **not** one of them."

"...Thank you," she replied.

As Delilah had left the clearing, Bridget was once again sitting down at the place next to Hope.

"You know," the druid-priestess mentioned, "some of the things you have said to her were not exactly..."

"Yes?"

"Friendly, reassuring or well, motherly, especially basically telling her that the other Hope was just **better** in using her than the others."

"Did you want me to tell her `nice´ things that were probably not true?"

"Just to tell her something to build her up instead of tearing her down. Well, the last part I have to admit was nearly perfect. I am impressed."

"I was never good at this," the half-god stated, "not with my own son either...and you know how that ended."

Bridged nodded. It was one of the many stories they had exchanged during the last year.

"Let us continue," she said.

Once again Hope´s mind was concentrating and sinking itself deep inside her own energetic essence, trying to locate the foreign presence in it and thus finding a way to neutralize her from this world and send her to a place where she would never be a threat again.

At first, everything was normal. The process was taking place as usual. But then, something unexpected happened.

xxxxxxx

"You know, I have once made a deal..." Eve heard a voice right behind her.

She turned around to see nobody else than Callisto standing there.

"...to erase my own life, to lose my painful memories, my identity, everything. I did no longer wish to exist. I just wanted to end it all." The blonde female warrior just continued to speak, ignoring her reincarnation´s visible unsettlement about her surprising appearance.

"Well, It didn´t really worked out," she remarked, giving her a sly grin. "It appears however that in some sense, you actually got the fulfillment of this wish and to that even the chance for a fresh start on top," she stated. "…and somehow you **still** managed to mess it up."

Like Callisto herself, Eve knew perfectly well about the connection between them. Xena and Gabrielle had informed her about that part of her heritage a long time ago. Not only was she a mass murderer in her own right, she was also the reborn form of another one.

Normally, she should have easily sensed her approaching. Despite spending the most part of those last years as a pacifist, Eve was a trained warrior and a **very** skilled one.

But after the talk with Perdicas she had been a bit withdrawn in her own thoughts. To that came that she hardly expected to face an enemy or some other sort of threat so close to town. Putting it simply, she had let her guard down.

But right now, she suddenly realized that this idea might have been wrong. If Callisto decided to blame her for the actions of the other Eve, she might **have** actual reasons to hate her. Even if they were in some sense two incarnations of the same being. On the other side, Eve was truly no stranger to the idea of hating herself.

Did she want to attack her? the question came to her mind. She didn´t have a weapon and she had never seen Callisto fight before. That meant if that was actually the case, her chances were not good.

For now however, she was only talking.

"Callisto," Eve greeted her...a bit hesitantly, her nervousness barely noticeable for most people. The counterpart of her former self however could see it clearly.

"Now my little reincarnation, what have you to say for yourself?" the former warlord asked her.

"My mother and Gabrielle told me about you," she replied.

"Oh really? And what did they have to say?"

"That you wanted revenge on Xena for the death of your family, that you were crazy, that you helped Hope in killing my half-brother and that you...you are..."

"That I became you?" Callisto answered in her place.

"Yes."

"Now, I have also heard a lot about you...here and in the other world I have visited. So I wanted to exchange a few words. Unfortunately, with the other Eve, I didn´t have a real chance to it before Xena had rammed a sword into her and ended her wretched existence."

Eve visibly flinched at the last statement and admittedly the thought of her own mother killing her gave her the chills.

"So far I am not impressed," Callisto stated. "You are nothing but a spoilt brat. Well, you seem to know all about my motivations. Tell me, why have you started murdering people? Because you were involved with the Roman Emperor and he allowed you to do everything you wanted? Because you just thought you could? Why have you stopped? Because you saw a bright light somewhere that told you to? That is quite pathetic actually, even by my standards."

"Stop it," Eve said.

"Stop it, really? Have you stopped when the people you had nailed on crosses asked you to? Have you stopped as the Sarah of this world begged for you not to kill her?"

"So this it it?" Eve realized.

"Yes, this is it," Callisto replied. "You know I have done the same things, of course not so often and not as widespread as you. But I have suffered for what I have done. Loneliness, madness, pain, I have spent time in Tartarus godsdammit. It has taken me years to truly come to terms with the things I have done and to change my life. But you….you just bounce around between good and evil that someone could get sick."

Eve was silent for a few seconds. She knew there was something about everything Callisto had said. But she was also somewhat aware that this was not her true motivation for confronting her here.

"Even if all that is true, nothing that we say here will change anything about it," she stated. "Callisto, what do you even want from me?"

Now it was the blonde warrior who hesitated for a few moments.

"...I don´t even know," she growled and turned around to walk away.

xxxxxxx

Hope´s consciousness was at a place at the border between the inside of her own mind and the Realm of the Spirits.

It was a place where she had been before, quite often in her entire life and especially quite regularly during the last year.

She could easily make out the dark presence that was Adrianna´s life essence in the distance, even more sinister than her own, so that it contrasted itself from it. But still, something was different this time. She and the remains of her sister, that were in a perverse sense still `alive´, were not alone, for, right there, before her in the emptiness, stood a stranger, in the form of a dark haired woman she had never seen before.

But she knew perfectly that shape meant very little out here.

"Who are you?" she asked.

On the woman's face formed a seemingly friendly smile.

"Oh it is so interesting to meet you," she said, "especially here in this place." She answered, looking around.

"I repeat, who are you?" Hope reinforced.

"I am sure you have heard about me. Your new guests might have told you about me. I have been responsible for their arrival by the way...and I am sure your father has informed you about my existence a long time ago," she stated now more seriously.

"You can call me Chaos."

"So it is you."

"Why don´t we two get to know each other little, Child of Darkness? " Chaos inquired. "There is so much to see at a place between the realms like this. The past..." she said.

In the empty room in front of them, life-sized illusions of other places started to appear.

Hope recognized one of them as her own arrival in the centaur village as she was still a child, a short time after she had freed Callisto from the sea of lava.

"The present," Chaos announced. The picture changed and was now showing Eve involved in a heated argument with Callisto.

"And the future." She announced and the images changed again, now showing a place completely unknown to her. It was a battlefield, spreading over miles, the ground covered with dead or wounded fighters. Somewhere in the background others were still fighting with each other.

In the center of the entire scene however, were standing two imposing heavily armored warriors. One was wearing a red overcoat on his metal suit, the other was clad nearly completely in black. The two men were clashing their swords while exchanging loud words that reminded her of the language of Britannia, but she couldn't exactly understand them.

"Tell me," Chaos asked her, "did you truly believe your father would find nobody else to fill your place at his side? In the end, your decision to stay with Hercules and the others might not even change anything in the long run."

"That is enough," Hope called out. "What do you want from me?"

The illusion vanished.

"I see you don´t want to play this game any longer," Chaos said. The smile on her face had now become menacing. "How about we play a different one? "

xxxxxxx

 _Half an hour later in,_ _the outside world_

Callisto was still walking along the path back to the town in silent anger. Like she had said it herself, she wasn´t even completely sure what had caused her to talk to this Eve here like that.

A part of it, she admitted to herself, was the fact that she had been forgiven so easily, while she had actually done more horrible things than her.

"I have heard you had a `talk´ with Eve," she heard a well known voice coming from the woods. It was very similar to Gabrielle´s, but somewhat deeper.

Just as expected, she saw Hope walking out from between the trees.

"It has been a long time `Auntie Callisto´, at least in this form."

"You could say that," she responded. "As I saw, you are keeping my reincarnation around now, right? So not much has changed."

"Not much, at least in this regard," Hope replied. "As much as I would like to stay and chat with you about old times, we have a serious problem at hand. We should return to town. The others are already being informed. I will explain everything on the way."

" **A serious problem** you say?" Callisto asked.

"More than serious. My last session with Bridget has gone completely wrong... But that was no coincidence. It has been interrupted...by somebody you know all to well. I have just been visited by Chaos."

"What are you saying?" she said, turning to her sharply.

"She has not managed to break out from the void and reach this world. Everything happened in a place between the realms. But she was still strong enough to do something else. You see, we have a problem and private matters should wait till later," Hope explained as they were both getting on their way.

"Despite that though, could you answer me one question?" she asked a few moments later.

"What question is that?"

"Eve…. are you planning to kill her?" Hope asked her with a smile.


	7. Chapter 7: Lurking in the dark

Here is finally the next chapter. I hadn´t updated for some time. My internet access had been defect and I needed to get a new one.

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 _Ireland_

 _"Eve…. are you planning to kill her?"_ Callisto heard that question coming- a question that should have been completely absurd, casually asking her if she had the intention of murdering one of her comrades.

Her voice however sounded completely careless and nearly...innocent? As if she didn´t really care at all.

How was she even supposed to answer to a question like that? And it was not only that.

What was the truth? Had she been honest, she wasn´t quite sure herself. **Did** she want to kill Eve?

"Why do you want to know this?" she asked carefully.

"To be honest, I don´t actually care **that** much if you kill her," Hope replied casually, shrugging her shoulders. "I must admit, I am kind of used to her presence…and besides that, mother wants her alive," she said with a grin. "To be completely honest, another reason is that having someone like her around actually makes **me** look good in comparison. You know, being a psychotic mass-murderer and all…. As long as we keep her around, Xena has very little room to complain about me."

Callisto just nodded at her words.

"And here I thought you were her friend," she commented drily.

"Oh I am, as much as two people like us can be friends. On the other hand, she is also a dangerous unstable mess and always only one step apart from becoming a violent maniac... and of course she is the murderer of my cousin and has caused great deal of pain to mother. So I am a bit undecided here."

While they kept speaking about all this like it was the most casual topic in the wolrd- as if they were talking about the weather- they were already on their way back to town to meet with the others.

"You see, you can say that I don´t really care that much either way," she told her.

"You can be a real piece of work Hope," Callisto commented. Yes, great words coming from the one who is playing with the idea of killing her own reincarnation in the first place, she thought.

"I learned from the very best " the Child of Darkness gave her a half-sarcastic answer.

The blonde warrior knew the meaning of that statement all too well. She meant not only her father but also Callisto´s own other self.

While it was true that she did have nobody who was **truly** close to her after the loss of her family through the burning of Cirra, the twisted relationship she had with this woman here was probably the closest thing to it.

Many years ago, Hope was the one who had freed her from the lava river where Xena had once left her behind.

After that, she had become `Auntie Callisto´ very quickly. That was at least what she had called herself at that time and the `then´ child of Gabrielle and Dahak seemed to go along with her in this role. They both supported each other in their goals, first for revenge, than for her various attempts to erase her own existence.

In the end, it was a pitiful outcome. If she was honest, she wasn´t even completely sure who had betrayed whom at that time. She knew Hope had been holding out on her with her promise to send her soul to oblivion, but...either way, this wasn´t the same Hope anyway.

"It seems that we have made the same deal in your world as we did in mine," her mental lines were suddenly being interrupted. "You should have known I would not be able to give you that on my own," the Child of Darkness told her, "at least not without my father entering this world first."

She was obviously answering the others woman´s silent thoughts as if she had been reading her mind.

"You could have just **told** me this little detail instead of keeping me in the dark," Callisto replied sharply. "By the way, I would be thankful if you keep your senses out of my thoughts."

"To be completely honest with you," Hope answered, "it was father who wanted me to hold out on you with this information. In fact he probably knew that most likely you would be turning on us. He had actually counted this in his plans. It was part of his greater schemes. I didn´t know this at that time."

"It seems daddy was only telling you what you needed to know...and not more," Callisto replied sarcastically, mirroring the situation where her old ally had told her the same thing all those years back.

 _"I am telling you what you need to know Callisto, nothing more."_ She remembered these words all too well.

"It seems so," Hope herself replied grimly with a visible frown on her face.

She remembered all too well another time when her father had decided to keep parts of his plans from her, as he himself had stated, because he knew she wouldn´t get along with them. It was one of the reasons that she finally parted ways with him.

"As I said, whatever you decide to do, I won´t stand in your way, not after what Eve had done to my family. But I certainly won´t assist you either."

Callisto flinched, barely noticeable. Somehow these words were not exactly helping her.

xxxxxxx

At the other side of town, at the same time, something else happened. After the strange interruption of Hope´s and Bridget´s meditation session, something had changed.

Something had been let loose, released into the physical world, and this something was now taking form in another part of the settlement. For all mortal eyes it looked like a incorporal black mist that was descending down to the ground and during that it became more and more thick and substantial, taking shape and reforming itself.

This `thing´ however was not simply moving coincidently or without aim. It was searching, nearly instinctively looking for something...or rather in fact for **someone**.

xxx

At the same time, different groups were searching the entire town for signs of this exact phenomenon.

One of them consisted of none other than Xena and Gabrielle, not the ones from this world but the two who had arrived just a few days ago.

"Xena...?" the Bard asked a bit nervously.

"Yes Gabrielle," she responded.

"I only wanted...It is just, what do you think about the story we have been told?" she wanted to know.

"To be honest, it worries me a lot, **all** of it," the warrior replied. "It is bad enough that Chaos has appeared again. That is actually a disaster. But it is not only that." She visibly hesitated a bit to continue.

Gabrielle could easily guess what Xena was talking about. She as well had been shocked when she had heard the entire story as why Hope had this sessions with the druid-circle.

"Thinking about it now, another being like **her**...and to think that she was the one holding this being back the entire time..." Xena cut herself off in mid-sentence. She knew that by discussing this topic with Gabrielle, any version of Gabrielle she had met, seldom led to a happy outcome.

"This Hope is not the ones we have known," the Bard offered, "just like Callisto or Eve are not the ones from our worlds."

"I am aware of that," Xena responded. "Anyway, it seems that we have two threats out there. First of Chaos and then this being that has been let loose…."

"Chaos is probably still trapped in the void where we have left her behind...mostly at least. That would explain why she did this instead of turning active herself," Gabrielle pointed out.

"I believe the same thing. Chaos is obviously not quite able to reach this world, at least for now. And that is the only good thing about this entire situation."

Yes, they both thought, not only Chaos who was obviously yet again waiting at the brink of this reality, but also a second Child of Darkness...whose essence was now freed once again.

xxxxxxx

The members of the druid-circle were now spread over the different parts of the town.

Unlike 30 years ago, when they had been in hiding from the Celtic Gods, the druids were now living their daily lives in town just like the normal people. So it was right here amongst the other citizens were she had found them.

Several minutes had passed since their leader, Bridget, had returned and informed them all what exactly had happened, not only the druids but also Hercules, Iolaus and a few of their different guests. Most of them had instantly offered to help after they heard what had happened.

The present versions of Xena and Gabrielle were among the first ones who had agreed to the druids had suggested after they explained the entire situation to them- right after Hercules himself.

Even the greek War God, Ares, offered his assistance as he heard what had happened, although a bit reluctantly. He had been told about the events from over one year ago from the others.

The worst thing that they had feared had now come to pass. It was what Bridget had recounted to the members of their group about the last session with Hope.

As the Dark Child first appeared together with Hercules a year before, they were very unsure about this entire situation. This was after all the daughter of the same being who had slaughtered the entire circle of their predecessors.

But Hercules, a man who had saved their land and who they trusted completely, had personally vouched for her. To that came the simple fact that, according to the words of both of them, she was keeping a similar creature like herself away, that she was bounding it with her own powers and keeping it out of their world.

Helping her to get rid of this menace was so ultimately in their own self-interest, just like it was in the one of every other living being.

Now however the monster had been released.

xxx

Another one of the groups- consisting of two of the druids- a man and a woman and a couple of armed men from the townfolk, was currently searching the area bordering to the neighboring forest.

It was very close to the place where the `black fog´ was manifestating itself.

They both thought about what their leader Bridget had told them only a short time ago. Both of them knew exactly what they were looking for out here.

The two druids with the names Adain and Lynna were, just like Xena, more than just worried.

At some distance behind them, the black fog, that was in fact only a manifestation of something far more sinister, was moving towards them.

And at the same time, a consciousness that had until now been overshadowed by deep confusion and that senses had been completely distorted, was now once again becoming aware of its surroundings.

xxxxxxx

"You also think that Chaos is using whatever is left of this being named Adrianna to get to us?" Gabrielle asked.

"That would be my guess," Xena responded. "The only question is if she can cause enough damage to help Chaos to reach this plane."

"If I am honest I have my doubts here, she should be quite weakened after being trapped for so long."

"Maybe," the warrior responded, "but even so, she is still a threat to everyone who lives here. We have to stop this creature. And if we know one thing about Chaos by now, that it is that she is causing trouble just for the sake of doing it," she commented.

Both of them realized that someone was getting closer to them. Xena with far more experience of course, heard them earlier. They had their weapons drawn.

A few seconds later they recognized Hercules, Iolaus and Sarah who had been searching close by.

"I guess you haven´t found anything?" the half-god stated.

"No," Xena replied.

"You all realize how dangerous it is what we are doing right now, right?" Sarah asked them. "If there is truly a being like Hope out there, then splitting up like this is the last thing we should do."

"We all know that," Hercules told her, "but we have to find her as quickly as possible before even more people die."

* * *

 **Authors note:** Like already stated earlier this reality here is set about 1 year after the story `Days of Tomorow´ and this story is heavily refering to these events. For example Eve killing Gabrielle´s niece, the `Dark Child´ Adrianna or the reason why Hope and Eve are in Ireland along with Hercules.

Other references in this chapter are to the Xena season 3 finale and the Hercules season 5 episode `Darkness Rising´.


	8. Chapter 8: Flesh and Blood

**Chapter 8**

The different groups that they had split into, were still searching the entire town and the area around it until one of them finally found what they had been looking for...but they hadn´t even realized it yet.

Lynna had been a part of the druid-circle for nearly ten years now, since she had been a young girl when she had been first introduced to it.

Her parents had died many years ago, when she was still a child. So in that way it was the druid-circle who had practically raised her...and it was in their company that she had learned everything she knew and became what she was now.

It had been Morrigan, the mother of their current leader Bridget, who had been watching over her for most of this time- that was until she decided to follow Hercules on this last mission to Greece which ultimately led to her death. Her loss had been painful for all of them. She was the one who had nearly single-handely rebuilt the Druid Circle after the loss of its last generation to Dahak.

They all missed her. Lynna and Bridget herself however did so more than everyone else out of the circle.

They had failed to see the black colored formless substance that was slowly coming closer to them from behind...until it was only meters away.

Both of the druids, like every one of their members, possessed a form of mystical supernatural power...and senses. Normally, they should have been able to feel the presence next to them.

But the bodiless essence had nearly instinctively began to hide itself. It´s substanceless and weakened form was actually in a strange way `helping´ it now and this was done out of one simple reason- in this state it was less easily to be discovered.

Even if it...she...had not actively been trying to shield itself from their senses it was still weaker than it should have been, but less power also meant less detection.

Truth was, they weren´t even sure about what exactly it was they were looking for. They had been told of course the basics of the story... about the creature that was being kept away by the Child of Darkness that arrived here last year. They knew that it had failed, and that the being had manifested itself here somewhere- but they didn´t know in what form.

Then it suddenly moved quickly...and **struck out**.

None of the two druids knew what was happening before it was already too late. The black substance reached them nearly instantly.

Before they could even react, it had completely surrounded them...or rather it had surrounded **one** of them. The `fog´ had concentrated itself around the form of the female druid.

As they fully realized what was going on, they were trying desperately to do something to defend themselves, to fight back..in any way. But it was already too late.

If they were honest, they were expecting `it´ to strike out at them, to attack them physically, or do something similar like that. What truly happened however was something a bit different. Something what they definitely **didn´t** expect.

The black incorporal mass was circling around her body, faster and faster...and while it was doing that, it seemed to disappear.

After a few moments the male druid actually began to understand what was going on. The substance...that wasn´t an actual substance, a physical matter, but a manifestation, an essence...was actually being absorbed into her.

While this happened at the outside, inside the body and soul of the young woman named Lynna, a short and brutal struggle was taking place.

Inside of her own mind she wanted to scream out. She could feel it, like a shadow... the dark presence that had reached out into her... and was invading herself. She wanted to fight it...she wanted to break free. But the attack was too sudden and too powerful. Seconds later it was over….

the woman who had once been the druid Lynna slowly opened her eyes...

It was some form of possession, Adain was sure about it. The creature in front of him was no longer the human being and friend he had known.

At the inside of the body that had once belonged to the woman named Lynna, a rest of a fight was still going on...that however only lasted moments. Then the remains of what had once been her mind and soul were violently crushed and finally driven out of the body...and sent into the afterlife.

The creature...Adrianna finally opened her eyes.

She was no longer what she had once had been. After her long imprisonment she came to realise that she didn't have the strength left to recreate her original body any more, so she decided to take this one as her own.

 **Now,** she struck nearly instantly. The second druid was slammed backwards with telekinetic power and hit the wall of the closest house with enough force that it alone nearly knock him out. Moments later, his bones began to crack under the continued pressure and his organs were ripped apart.

The two men standing by hesitated for a short moment. Their weapons were already drawn, but they made no actual move to use them. None of them felt well at the thought of actually attacking one of the druids...or something that just looked like one.

They had just been watching what happened. But in opposite to Adain, they had never the knowledge or the supernatural senses to completely understand it...at least not instantly. Of course they too had seen the black substance literally vanishing inside her body. They must have known. Common sense alone had been enough to figure it out, if they thought at it even for the shortest moment.

Sadly it was a moment they didn´t have. Before they had any chance to overcome their shock...the neck of one of them had been broken and the other could not longer move as he just felt helplessly how his life-energy being drawn from his body until it failed him, seconds later, it was over. They were all lying dead before her.

Adrianna looked down at the bodies. They had been in her way, so they died. But this was also a show of force, a statement to whoever found them... and also a test of her powers.

She was now back- flesh and blood. But she felt different...and she knew it was not only because she was inside a host body.

So far she knew that she still didn´t have the power to recreate her original form...at least for now. But her current body had just shown that it could hold and channel her powers. It would do...for now.

xxxxxxx

In another part of town, the other groups who were still on their search had come to a pause. For the one who was led by Hercules...and a minute later the one consisting of Xena and Gabrielle... it was when Ares and Aphrodite had suddenly appeared before them.

The two gods had sensed the presence that had just manifested itself….What had been contained for over a year was now free.

xxx

The pair consisting of Xena and Gabrielle...two versions of them... had no way to know what was going on, not until they saw Aphrodite showing up in a flash of light right next to them and started to explain what she had sensed happening.

These two were Xena and Gabrielle, but not the ones from this world. They were not even from the same world originally, but had seen each other the first time as they met at the crossroad between the dimensions.

Both of them had lost their original partners, to different circumstances. Their memories were not the same. Both had over time come to accept the other as a replacement for the one they had lost.

They were by now nearly as close to each other as they had been to the partner they had originally known.

Both knew they were different, had different pasts, but over time they had come to terms with it...at least for the greatest part.

xxx

"Something is here," Ares said right away to Hercules and Iolaus, who he had just appeared right in front of. "I can tell right away it is highly malicious and very dangerous. It also feels somewhat familiar to me though."

"Yes, that is **her** ," Iolaus remarked, "without a doubt. You have really figured her out." The at least...light sarcasm in his voice was to make out easily.

They all remembered the various blood baths that Adrianna had caused one year ago all too well.

"You have not truly met her as she was en large back then," Hercules pointed out.

"Yes I know. I actually don´t understand how I could have missed all that the last time," Ares responded. It was clear by his tone that it had not been his intention to sound sarcastic at all. "By what I heard, it had been real carnage. I should have really been there."

You didn´t miss it, Iolaus thought silently. You **were** actually there in the end, but we had to erase your memories because it would have endangered history since your other self had been sent back from the future and... But that was another story, he thought.

"I am sure you will survive having missed **one** battle in your life Ares," Hercules countered. And he **was** being sarcastic.

"It is not that," the War God replied defensively. "I just don´t understand how I could oversee something like that going on inside my Realm for weeks without noticing."

Iolaus and Hercules shared a look. They knew all to well that he didn´t just oversee this events happening. He had indeed heard about them and in the end he even was a part of it. They had purposely kept him from remembering his short involvement...to preserve the timeline, as Ares older self had called it.

xxx

Callisto and Hope, who were still on their way to the point where they wanted to meet with the others, had already noticed it by themselves...Hope had felt it.

The being they knew under the name Adrianna...a being that could be described as Hope´s half-sister...had remanifested herself. It was exactly what they had tried to prevent for the last year.

"We have to meet with the others," Hope stated.

"So it has happened, I guess," Callisto responded. "This being you have been talking about has returned."

"Yes, she is back," she replied stoically. But something about her feels different, she thought by herself.

Her long forced containment had obviously changed something about her. The only question was, was this good or bad.

xxx

A few minutes later the different groups were meeting up again. They all had hoped to locate Adrianna´s essence before it managed to fully manifest itself on Earth again...they had failed.

Now they had to track her down and stop her once again. The only good part about this entire situation was that... **now** that she had a physical form again, they had a good idea where she was.

Xena and Gabrielle had just arrived and joined the others, shortly followed by Perdicas and Delilah. They were the last ones. All of them were now present, the natives and the `visitors´ alike.

From the people assembled here, only Iolaus, Hercules, Hope, Eve and Ares and also the druids were actually from this world.

Out of all of them, only Hercules, Iolaus, Eve and Hope had actually faced this enemy before.

Callisto, Sarah, Perdicas, the woman named Delilah, this version of Aphrodite and even Xena and Gabrielle however were all interdimensional displaced doubles. As close as some of them where, they were not truly the people they knew...not really.

Across them, Callisto cast a side-glance at Eve, her own reborn other self...the same person she had in fact considered killing only a few minutes ago.

Strictly seen...they were strangers, at least in some sense- however very similar ones to their friends, companions or in some cases...enemies. Their lives had in some cases been nearly identical to that of the people they actually knew...but always only to a point.

The most important thing right now however, was that none of them actually had any experience fighting **her**.

Despite all that of course, Adrianna was outnumbered and completely outmatched. It was not as if she had any chance to defeat all of them.

They...the ones assembled here...multiple gods and half-gods...were many of the most powerful beings on the face of this world.

The only question was how much harm she would be able to cause before they managed to stop her. But that was exactly what they had been trying to avoid.

The greatest problem was that...despite even all their combined power...there was no known way to them to destroy a creature like Adrianna...or Hope for that matter...for good.

Yes, they could overpower her, easily if they worked together, yes they could destroy her body. But she could always just regenerate it. Yet none of them was able to actually destroy her essence...to truly kill her. Nobody did.

So far, they didn't have one single idea how doing that could even be possible.

Quite ironically though... now...thanks to their guests...there might actually be a chance...maybe.

There was something, a thought that they had...So far however it was only an idea.

xxxxxxx

In some distance away Adrianna was moving in a direction away from the town. She would leave this area, she would try to avoid the others...if not she would fight her way out...if her body got destroyed she would just take a new one.

Never would she allow Hope or the rest to trap her again. Everybody who stood in her way would die.

There was still the fact that her energy...her own presence... felt so much different as it did before. Was it possible that during her confinement her essence had somehow mutated...changed?

Was that the true reason she could not return to her old form?

She would find a place to hide and regain her old strength.

Then this town and this entire island and everyone on it...would burn.


	9. Chapter 9: A Plan

**Chapter 9**

They were hunting for a monster.

It was nearly a week ago now, that she had once again returned to human form...returned to this plane of reality.

Since then the combined group had been following her path, trying to track her down.

The monster they were searching for was nobody else than the Child of Darkness named Adrianna. After her original body had been destroyed the last time over a year ago

On their way they had already found an entire family slaughtered and the house they had lived in burned down.

It were not even the first victims they had found. Only a few days earlier they had discovered the mutilated body of a wanderer, who had the bad luck of crossing the path Adrianna were travelling on...and a short time before that another house that had been burned to the ground and the inhabitants slaughtered.

It was just destruction and murder only for the sake of it...At one side she was killing out of sheer bloodlust.

Adrianna had been insane even before her banishment. What kind of effect the long time forced away from this world would have had on her? Nobody could tell.

This senseless carnage was probably a sign of her obviously deranged state of mind. Well, at least Hercules and Xena thought so, the later despite that she had never even actually met this creature and had no experience with her.

But she had been gaining an impression very quickly. She couldn´t help it that the seemingly random killings somehow reminded her of Callisto...the old Callisto, the insane one, not the one who was with them right now. It had the handprints of a maniac.

All of Adrianna´s plans had long been crushed at this point...all her resources long gone. They were truly not sure if there was still any sense in her actions besides just killing for the sheer sake of it.

It was like the actions of a rabbid animal...craving for blood.

But beside all that, it was also something else. It was also a message... a message to them.

All of their group, especially Xena and Callisto, who had both seen... and committed their share of such massacres, could see this by how the bodies were literally lined up for them to find...Of what would await them and everyone around...

And it was also a challenge. It was a showing that she was by now regaining her old power and that she was ready for them.

xxxxxxx

 _2 days earlier_

 _"Why...why in the world is she doing this?" Sarah had asked as she saw the slaughtered family for the first time._

 _Despite having been with Callisto for several years now. Scenes likes this were something she wasn´t quite used to yet._

 _"I don´t know," Gabrielle answered._

 _As she was told they were going after a Child of Darkness, she admitted she had expected something like her daughter Hope. But this was far worse. She had been told the stories about this one...but somehow deep inside she still hadn´t quite believed it._

 _This was madness. Completely senseless mindless killing. It reminded her of..._

 _"This is just what some people are doing," Xena responded next to them. "People like that need to be put down."_

 _She may not know this particular being. But the more she was seeing of her handywork, the better got her impression. She might not know her, but she had met many people of her kind before. The Callisto of her world, Darphus, for a time even her own old self... and others.  
_

 _In a way this was her worst nightmare, a being like Hope with the mindset of an insane killer._

 _"She is right," Callisto stated. "I have been one of this people once and I know. Someone like her will never stop...not until someone forces her to. And since she is a god, we have no chance to just capture her and lock her up. Hey, that had barely stopped me back in the day. You can imagine how little it would mean to **her**."_

 _"Why in the world has Chaos brought back a creature like that?" Gabrielle questioned. "Just because of us..."_

 _They could all hear the unasked question. Was all of that their fault? Were they the reason this monster was now terrorizing this land._

 _"Don´t even start to think in that direction," she was interrupted by Callisto. "We know Chaos and that she is doing things like this simply because she is in the mood. And don´t forget, it is because of **her** that we are here, not the other way around."  
_

 _"She probably hopes that if `Adrianna´ is causing enough havoc for a long enough time, it would cause a instability in this world and give her a chance to escape the void we have send her to," Xena stated."  
_

 _"And given what we know about her, this might actually work," Sarah reminded them._

 _Xena nodded._

 _"That only means we have to carry out our plan...and that better as quick as possible," she said.  
_

 _"It is quite ironic," Callisto remarked. "We might actually be doing Chaos a favor if we do this." She grinned. "But at least it should keep **both** of them from causing any more trouble here in this world."_

xxxxxxx

She was killing and they all knew they would be unable to stop her for good...to destroy her. Not with any means they possessed, as much as they hated to admit it.

Their group...originally not even from the same world, but working together for now to stop this threat... included several gods and demigods. Even Ares and the Aphrodite who had come with their visitors were helping them. Technically Adrianna was completely outmatched and had no chance against them.

They could fight her, they could protect some people from her, they could destroy her body...but she would always come back...and more and more innocent people would die every time. To truly kill a Child of Darkness, as they had learned with Hope, was nearly impossible.

If she wanted to, she could continue this perverse game for years and they would always be one step behind her. Until this entire land was drenched in blood.

xxx

They themselves however had also not been inactive during the last week. In fact they had prepared.

It was a part of the story that their `guests´ had told them...about how they came here, to this world...that had brought them to an idea...and finally a plan.

For this plan some of them had actually been leaving the island, while the rest were still following her trail.

They knew there was no way for them to kill a creature like her. But there were ways to contain her. Hope had done exactly that over the course of the last year. Yet... thanks to Chaos intervention, it hadn´t been enough.

They had to find another way, a better one...and in the tale of their visitors they heard one detail that they found **very** interesting.

xxx

For that reason a few of them had just now traveled over the half known world, while the rest had stayed here and continued their pursuit of their enemy...All that to retrieve one special object.

Ares and Aphrodite, being gods, were able to cross that distance in only a short time. They were lucky of course that nearly the entire way was inside the territory of their own Realm. So they could use their teleportation

The two gods had gone along with Gabrielle and Sarah. The last ones came along because they knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it. So they travelled all the way...all the way to Egypt.

Thanks to Aphrodite and Ares teleportation they managed to do that in only in the matter of a few days...and they had returned and brought back the object they were searching for. After they had found it inside the ruins of an ancient temple of the Egyptian Pantheon.

That was now a few days ago. Now all what was left was to locate and confront her.

They could only hope now that they would be able to manage that without even more people to die in the process. That meant they had to find her quickly.

xxxxxxx

The time that the other half of them had returned was now three days ago...the time that they had found the slaughtered family two days.

By that time they had a quite good idea in which area she was. During the last week they had constantly come closer and closer to her trail. By now they had managed to exactly locate her.

This however went both ways. She knew that they were coming as well. She knew that she would not longer be able to avoid them and she accepted it. This would be the first clash between them...the first of many if she had her way.

She had no chance in hell to beat them or even to avoid defeat, she knew this. But she also knew that **they** had no way to put her down for good. So it didn´t really matter.

She would just regenerate...again and again if necessary. And every time she would return and kill more and more people, without end, until every person on this wredged island was dead. It didn´t matter. She would have her revenge.

She was only waiting for them.

xxxxxxx

It was one, on the first look, quiet and peaceful looking landscape, an area bordering the forests, green meadows, a river flowing close by.

Barely anybody would have thought that this place would be turned into a battlefield. But it would very soon.

It was here where Adrianna had decided to await her pursuers...the place she had chosen. For what she thought would be the first round...the first of many as she planned to.

It would be the first time and the last one if it came to the others.

xxx

"She is there," Are told the others as he appreared in front of them.

"She is," Hope confirmed his statement, relying on her supernatural senses.

"Yes, it seems that she has decided to stop avoiding us," Hercules stated. "Are you all ready?" he asked them.

"You can say that," Xena replied. "Everything is prepared. This creature will get the surprise of her life," she said with a smirk.

"Then let us go. I just hope we can finally put an end to this once and for all," the half-god answered.

"Yes," some of the others responded, a few just nodded as answer.

xxxxxxx

It was less than a hour later that they arrived at the place where Adrianna had decided to wait for them.

They were approaching from three sides, trying to surround her. But she didn´t even try to evade them. Just as expected. She had accepted that they would fight and would be relying on her powers to regenerate herself later.

"Welcome," she addressed them as the members of their first team were close enough.

Hercules, Xena, Gabrielle, Eve and Hope were walking towards her from the front.

Callisto, Sarah, Delilah and Perdicas would be stepping out of of the forest every moment now. At least as Hope´s senses, who was following their movements, were telling her. Ares and Aphrodite would just teleport and appear right next to them.

Adrianna was still in the form of the Druid Lynna, who was smaller and thinner than her original body that ressembled Xena.

"Hercules, so we meet again," she said to him."I take it you have found my way signs?"

"If you mean the trail of murder and destruction you have left? Yes we have seen it," he responded.

"I knew I could count on your competence," she said `cheerfully´. "And Xena," she greeted her. "There seems to be something off about you though. Your presence doesn´t seems to be quite the same as last time."

"You could say I **am** not quite the same," she responded. "By the way, we have not actually met before."

This statement surprised even their opponent, a Child of Darkness, for a few moments.

It was in this second that the rest of their group came out of the forest and the two Olympians showed up in a bright light.

Suddenly she started to laugh.

"Ah I see, it seemed there had been a disturbance in time and space shortly before I woke up again. Well, it seems to be worse than I first thought. Not that it matters anyway. Even if you aren´t exactly the same, who you are is more than reason enough to kill you all," she stated, looking from one in their group to the other.

"Eve, have you killed any of Gabrielle´s family-members in the last time?" she remarked casually. "If not there are a few here to choose from."

This world´s Xena´s daughter visibly crinched at the last statement.

"Adrianna, stop this nonsense," Hercules cut in.

"And who do we have here? a new Destroyer, looking quite different like the last one," she turned to Delilah, completely ignoring the demi-god.

"Ares, I believe I have never met this incarnation of you either," she addressed the God of War. "No matter, you will pay for what the other Ares did to me."

It was in this moment that she decided to attack.

The `fight´ itself took only less than two minutes.

 **Chapter 10**

The fight had started as Adrianna formed a fireball in her hand and threw it directly at Gabrielle. That however was quickly blocked by Hope.

Then she telekinetically ripped a tree out of the ground and


	10. Chapter 10: Return to All

**Chapter 10**

The fight had started as Adrianna formed a fireball in her hand and threw it directly at Gabrielle. An attack that was however was quickly blocked by Hope.

As a response Aphrodite and Ares both threw energy-globes at her. She was able to deflect the first, but the second hit her dead-center and despite her effort to shield herself, it burned deep into her flesh.

Then she telekinetically ripped a tree out of the ground and tried to let it drop on Xena and Callisto. But Delilah interfered, stopped it, suspending it in mid-air before tossing it aside.

At the same moment Hope send out a shockwave with her own telekinesis that tossed her `sister´ to the ground...and then Xena used the chance to use her Chakram. The weapon hit her upper arm and left a deep gash.

Callisto and Hercules, at the same time, threw their swords at her. Adrianna caught both weapons in mid-air, using her powers. But it took her entire concentration and left her unguarded.

The other gods under them used this chance and attacked again. Delilah used once again telekinesis just to hold their opponent in place, as Aphrodite and Ares concentrated their energy and fired it at her again. This time it broke through her already weakened defenses and forced her to the ground once again. The combined power of the two gods burned into her flesh and finally left her crippled and broken.

The fight was decided. But it was not over yet.

"You...you know this doesn´t mean anything." Adrianna was looking up to them. She was not even able to stand up anymore. "Even if you destroy this body. I will just regenerate...again and again if it has to. I will always come back. You will never get rid of me...never," she shouted.

"Yes," Hercules said to her. The half-god made one step forward. "Under normal circumstances you would be right with that," he admitted.

"But we have made some preparations," Xena stated as she walked up next to them.

Behind them Sarah was taking something out of her travelling-bag...a small object. It was something Adrianna had never seen before.

But the other knew what it was. It was the Eye of Ra, that they had just brought all the way from Egypt.

"Sarah, Gabrielle, now," Xena called out to her.

At her word she handed the Eye to Callisto who without a moment of hesitation mounted it on the end of a staff that the other had brought along and that Perdicas was holding to her right now.

It was all going just as planned.

At the same time Gabrielle was taking out one of her scrolls she was carrying with her. She pulled it open and prepared herself to beginn to read the words written on the pergament.

They all were taking their positions. It was the same ritual their `guests´ had been performing back in the last world they visited and told the others about...a perfect reprise, hopefully. It should better be, because they had only been present at it once...and then it had been the god Horus who did most of the work for them.

But they had paid attention, all of them.

"Bind her," Callisto said as she brought the staff in position.

As she said this both Hope and Delilah used their telekinesis to force her to the ground and held her limbs fixated.

"What are you doing? Release me," she screamed in pure rage.

"Gabrielle do it," Xena called out to her.

The Bard started to read the words written on the scroll, the same ones that she had copied from the temples in Egypt...and the ritual began.

It was nearly the same like the last time...even if improvised.

As Gabrielle was reciting the first words, Ares and Aphrodite moved closer to their captive. A second time both gods unleashed their energy at once at their target. This time however the already heavily damaged and wounded body was disintegrated.

Adrianna `died´ nearly instantly and what remained of her stolen body was turned to ash within moments. But that was only her physical form.

What was left was only a glowing, vaquely humanoid looking, figure, that seemed to consist of a mixture of energy and fire. This was her essence, as Hope had called it...her true being...or at least the closest representation that mortal eyes could understand.

From this, she could always recreate her body and return to life.

But now exactly this form itself was being bound by the light summoned by the Eye of Ra. The Light reflected by the artifact was shining on it and surrounded it... forcing it into invisible supernatural chains.

A terrible howling was halling through the air as Gabrielle continued to read the text.

 **This** was what they had hoped for. The same ritual had been used in the other reality to banish Chaos from the Earth. So they were quite confident that it would work on this creature as well.

This was actually the purpose of this ritual...to banish creatures of darkness. So it **should** work.

And it did.

The light that was radiating from the Eye of Ra was concentrating itself around the form of the incorporal being while Gabrielle was reciting the next nect of the written words.

The inhuman screams coming from the `thing´ were getting even louder. The glowing figure, trapped by the shackles of light seemed to be trashing around.

As the Bard was reading the last part of the text, the form finally vanished in a bright glance. The place where it had been a moment before was empty.

"It had worked," Xena said.

"Yes, it looks as our plan had worked," Callisto responded.

"It did," Hope told them.

Ares just gave them a nod with the head as well...confirming.

"We sensed her presence being removed from this world," Aphrodite stated.

"Then it looks as if Chaos will from now on have company out there in the void. Well, good riddance I say," Callisto remarked grinning.

xxxxxx

 _At another place, outside this world...the void between realities_

A few moments later...after her presence had been vanquished Adrianna found herself somewhere else. It was a place even she had never seen before.

Around her was something that seemed on the first to be a desolate wasteland of rocks and rubble. On a closer look however the solid ground ended only after a few hundred meters. She was in fact standing on a small island of rock, floating over an infinite abyss.

Above her was only a completely empty sky, no stars, sun or anything visible. Actually it was not even a sky, not even space, it was just an empty `void´.

Of course like everything she saw around here this was ultimately only a visual manifestation of what was truly there, like the rock beneath her feet, like the space around her...This meant in this case it was nothing...absolutely nothing.

Of course also her own form here was actually only a manifestation as well. Her physical self had been destroyed after all. She herself was completely aware of that.

The only question was whose will had formed this manifestations? A physical representation this detailed was normally created by an intelligent mind. She knew this perfectly well... Adrianna was a Child of Darkness.

Where was she? Where did the others had send her with that goddamn ritual? she thought angrily

At the first look it had some superficial similarity with the Spirit Realm, but only at the first look. She knew nearly instantly it was something completely else.

The truth was, this here was **the** **void** between realities...this was the **absolute** nothingness.

And she was **not** alone.

"Now, I have known that something would happen. But this is a surprise," she heard a voice coming from behind her.

As she turned around she saw it´s source, a black substance ressembling a heavy fog...that quickly began to took a humanoid shape...and formed itself into that of a tall dark haired woman.

"When I helped you to escape from your...ahm predicament I wasn´t sure what the outcome would be. Well, I had actually hoped you would cause enough damage down there, for me to find an opening to return to the physical plane, I admit. But it seems it wasn´t meant to be. Too bad...But there will be other chances and I have time."

Adrianna noticed that the `woman´ was talking as if she didn´t even address her anymore, as if she was speaking with herself...rambling. As if she wasn´t even really paying attention to her.

That thought only made her more angry as she already were.

"But this..." she started to laugh. "To actually have someone here with me. Yes, who would have thought."

"Who or what are you?" Adrianna asked enraged. "Where am I? Answer me now... or you will suffer."

The woman only grinned.

"Well, at least I will have company now," she said.

"Answer me?" Adrianna shouted again. A light uneasiness came over her, caused by both, this place here and the presence she felt from the stranger. But her arrogance didn´t allow her to show it.

"My little child," the woman replied, "Adrianna as you are called...yes I know about you...You will very soon realize you are not the one you can make demands here. This is my turf. But I will answer your question...

I am Chaos...and this place here...now, it is for the most part called the Void between realities. And you and me will spend a long time together here," she said... still with a grin.

xxxxxxx

The way back to the coast would take them another week.

Their group was still wandering through the forests and valleys of Ireland. This time though they had actually the chance to enjoy their travel...now that they didn´t have to pursue an insane murderer.

For the most of them though, this would not even be the end of their journey. They would once again travel far further than that.

The members of their group who were not from here would repeat their attempt to return to their home-worlds very soon. In the same way they had originally arrived here.

There was however another matter that was just now about to be resolved.

They were taking a rest for the time being, for a few hours before they began the last part of their journey.

A few of them had been walking by themselves...moved some distance away from the camp, so they could be alone for some time. For different reasons though...in Eve´s case, it was the meeting with Adrianna, that had woken up bad memories.

"You know," she heard a voice coming from beside her, "when I had heard about you...what you have done... I actually thought about killing you." She **knew** that voice...as if it were her own you could say, literally. In some way this person had been her in another life after all.

"Callisto," she said... somewhat nervous, but hiding it well. "I see. What had caused you to change your mind?"

"What makes you think I have?" Callisto replied with a grin. Her hand was close to her sword.

"If you hadn´t you wouldn´t be talking to me right now. You are not one to play this kind of games. Back then when you were...well, crazy, yes... but not now."

"I see you have got to know me quite well...my reincarnation," Callisto answered. "Don´t misunderstand me, I don´t like you at all. Do you know how long it had taken me to change my ways...and how hard it was. You...you had a god shine light in your eyes and suddenly you were **different**? and then another one was playing with your mind and you were just like before?Not to mention that you are a spoiled brat that got everything handed to her for too long and never actually had to face responsibilities.

As far as it comes to me, you are a dangerous loose gun that should better be kept an eye on. And I myself are not exactly an Angel," she told her.

The irony of the last statement was not lost to Eve.

"I can not even disagree with you," she replied sadly. "Before I met Adrianna, I thought everything was okay about me, but after what she did to me..."

"But **right now** you are not a murderer," Callisto stated. "It would be wrong to attack you about things that could happen."

Maybe it would not be **that** wrong. If I can be changed that easily, then..." Eve replied.

"But you came back from it the second time by yourself I have been told. As you became Livia the second time, no bright light had brought you back, only Xena and yourself. That proves that you are capable to change by yourself if you truly want to. Don´t **let** it happen again," she said to her sternly.

"I won´t," she answered.

After a short nod Callisto turned around and left Eve alone with her thoughts.

xxxxxxx

Two days later they had arrived back in the coast town that Hercules, Iolaus and for the time also Hope and Eve called their home.

The next morning their visitors were preparing yet another ritual. A repeat of the same one that was meant to bring them all home.

Callisto and Sarah were the first who would leave.

"I have to say this was an interesting visit here," the blonde warrior remarked.

"You can say that...and it was nice to meet you Aunt Gabrielle...at least in some way," Sarah stated.

"Yes, of course my sister is far from having children in my world," the Bard replied.

"It was good to see you again cousin...at least in some way," Hope of all people told her.

"Thank you."

"I am happy that I met a version of you that was not my enemy," Gabrielle addressed her daughter. "I am glad that it is... possible."

"You know..." Hope stated, "...the version of me in your world, she might return one day. Maybe then..."

"Yes, maybe then..." Gabrielle said.

"Callisto, what we talked about two days ago," Eve addressed her.

"Yes?"

"I will hold to what you have said to me."

The blonde warrior nodded to her dark haired reincarnation once again...this time more friendly than the last.

The ritual was already prepared. Gabrielle began to read the text and less than a minute later...Sarah and Callisto vanished.

Next came Delilah, Perdicas and Aphrodite, who would be returning to the place they came from.

"Like grandmother said," Delilah stated, "I am glad that I got to meet a version of you that would have actually cared about me, mother."

"I am happy that there are versions of you that are still the girl that I have known Gabrielle," Perdicas said to her.

She returned his words with a smile. After she had red the last passage of the text once again, they as well were gone.

Xena and Gabrielle herself would be the last.

This last time Bridget would be the one reading the words, when the two would be transported away.

"Hercules..." Xena started a bit insecure...this was something quite unusual for her, "Iolaus...Hope...even you Ares," she addressed the War God, "it was good to see you again. I never thought I would get that chance after my stupidity got you all killed where I come from. I can only hope I will do better in the world I will come to now with Gabrielle."

"I am sure you will," Hercules replied.

After the Druid Priestess had read the words, it was over. Xena and Gabrielle had vanished as well.

"I will return to Greece soon," Ares told them. "The problem I came here for is solved after all. I can not wait to tell our Xena and Gabrielle about this...not to mention Aphrodite."

" **If** they believe you, you mean," Iolaus commented.

"Why wouldn´t they?" Ares replied grinning.


End file.
